


Soldier

by iliveatlast



Series: Shiner-verse [6]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Found Family, Internalized Homophobia, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Young Daryl Dixon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24665260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveatlast/pseuds/iliveatlast
Summary: If they're going to stay in Alexandria, Daryl knows things are going to have to change. He just hopes those changes are for the better.He doesn't know if they are.Season 6, Shiner-verse.
Series: Shiner-verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743010
Comments: 30
Kudos: 79





	1. Wolf Pack

**Author's Note:**

> All right - Season 6! I'm skipping the whole 'walkers in the quarry' plotline because - meh. But soon I'll be back on canon! Some events in this chapter took place originally in the season 5 episode Conquer.

When the changes come, they come quick.   
  
It's always been that way, Daryl guesses - things never go slow, they jerk and spin and twist around. But this change feels jarring even though outwardly, everything else looks the same. Because one day, Pete's alive and Deanna's looking at all of them funny and Daryl is wondering if they'll be kicked out, or worse, if they'll stay and he'll never be let outside the walls again. The next -

"She said yes?" Daryl asks. Aaron is in front of him in his boots, his fancy jacket, his dumb backpack slung over his back.  
  
"More or less," Aaron says.   
  
Daryl doesn't ask what that means. He hardly says anything. He gets his bow, his knife, his gear. There's an excitement in his stomach that feels stupid. He's spent more time outside walls than in since the world went dark. No reason to be so amped up.   
  
He doesn't mention the bike. It's enough to get outside, he doesn't need to ride the bike yet. It'll come. But maybe Aaron can read him better than he knew, because he says casually, as Daryl checks his bolts one last time, "What do you think? Should we take your baby?"  
  
Daryl snorts. "It ain't a baby."  
  
But he can't stop himself from a grin as they head over to Aaron's garage.   


* * *

It's a recruiting mission, sort of. After last night, Daryl wonders if anyone will ever agree to bringing in more people ever again. But Aaron says it's not about that.   
  
"It's not like I even know where people are right now to recruit," he explains as he loads up the trunk of his car. "It's a longer game than that. First we have to find people. Then we have to make sure they still are people."  
  
Daryl thinks of Gareth, of Joe, of the Claimers kicking the shit out of Len, and he nods. 

"We use the radio, when we can, we surveil. But a lot of it is luck. So - can't hurt to get in practice. Right?"  
  
Daryl wants to ask how practice and luck fit together when he sees, near the gate, Abraham and Rick loading something into the back of a car. Something body shaped and wrapped in blue tarp.   
  
"Damn," Aaron says. "Deanna was saying - but I didn't think they'd actually do it."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Bury him outside the walls."  
  
The car drives away and Daryl sees a flicker out of the corner of his eye - like someone lanky, wearing a beanie, climbing the wall - but he purposefully doesn't look. What other people do ain't his business.   
  
If it was Daryl's dad, maybe he'd want to know where he was too.   
  
But Daryl knows where his dad is - some walker pulp on the side of the road somewhere near Woodbury. And he doesn't have a grave. Daryl didn't dig one. He didn't even think about it.   
  
So. Whatever. Ain't his business. His business is this, with Aaron. He feels nervous in a way he hasn't for ages. Practice, Aaron said. A test run. Which means it's a test. Which means Daryl better do a good job or he'll be stuck in Alexandria forever.  
  
"You ready?" Aaron asks. "I've got gas enough in the car for both of us. Maybe we should just take the car. If there's a problem on the road -"  
  
Daryl turns his face to stone and nods. Whatever. It doesn't matter. As long as he gets to go outside it doesn't matter if he gets to ride the bike or not, if he -

"Daryl?" Aaron says, a hint of concern around his eyes. "I'm just kidding."  
  
Why do people think kidding is fun? It sucks. Daryl just nods again. 

"M'ready," he says. Aaron holds out the helmet, and Daryl does his best not to roll his eyes as he puts it on. Merle'd call him a pussy, he saw him riding around in one, but Aaron seems like the kinda person who hates it when kids smoke or don't wear seatbelts or forget helmets. 

"All right then," Aaron says, grinning. "Let's ride."

* * *

He's glad Aaron brought the car. He doesn't know if Aaron was always planning on it or if Aaron decided to after Daryl freaked out like a baby last time Aaron rode on the bike, but it's useful. Daryl goes out ahead, scouts the road some, then rides back. Each time he goes a little faster, the wind tearing at his shirt, his cheeks. He feels more alive than he has in weeks - maybe months. Maybe since he did arson with Beth. He almost wants to close his eyes and remember - riding with Merle down windy backroads, keeping guard on it when Merle went into a gas station to buy cigarettes and round the back to buy crystal, washing it alone those first few weekends when Merle joined the army, his solitary refuge. But closing his eyes on a bike in walker country is the stupidest idea Daryl's ever thought so he keeps his eyes open and just feels alive, alive, alive. 

It's still humming through him when Aaron flashes his headlights at him and Daryl pulls over.   
  
"Here's as good a spot as any," Aaron says. "We've got three big roads that meet up a little to the west and one to the south, and on clear days like today, the radio can reach all of them." Aaron takes it out and puts it on the hood of the car, twiddling one of the dials. "We'll listen in for a minute, see if we get any clue about which direction might be best. If not, we'll leave the radio on and just pick."  
  
Daryl nods. It's slapdash and regimented at the same time, the kind of thing he likes - a plan that moves and changes, but still a plan. He covers up his bike and Aaron finds pine branches to camouflage the car, and they wait. The radio crackle is low and quiet, white noise that settles gentle around his ears like the wind in the trees, the sound of birds a little away.  
  
"It's like something out of Antigone," Aaron says suddenly, and Daryl squints at him. Out of what?   
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Oh, I just - I was thinking about Pete, about - burying him outside the walls like that. It's like something from Antigone. Let's hope it turns out better for us than for them."  
  
Daryl wants to nod or say something but he has no idea what Aaron's talking about. He vaguely thinks antigone might be some kind of flower - but isn't that an anemone? Isn't that some kind of ocean thing? And that wouldn't make any sense with what Aaron's saying anyway.   
  
"You ever read Antigone?"  
  
Oh. A book. Daryl shakes his head, feels one finger going towards his mouth and puts it away. He's read enough books but not a ton or nothing. Not like Carol. "Naw," he says finally when it seems like Aaron's waiting for an answer. Is Aaron going to say he's too stupid to be his recruiting partner?   


"It's a play. One of the great plays of Greek theater. Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus?"  
  
Daryl wrinkles his nose. "Ain't that some sex thing?" That he's more sure of, but only just - it's something dirty, he knows that, even though he's not sure he ever knew the context.  
  
"No! Or I mean - not originally, not - in the play Antigone's brothers die in a war and the king says that one can be buried in the city but the other has to lay outside the gates, unburied, without the ritual of the gods -"  
  
"Like Pete," Daryl says, just to prove he's following, that he's not stupid -  
  
"I - I guess. It's - never mind. It's a stupid analogy. They're burying Pete. Just - not in Alexandria."  
  
Daryl nods. It hadn't really bothered him - what, they wanna lay Pete and Deanna's husband side by side? Be weird, he guesses. But he remembers the lines of quiet, well tended graves outside the funeral home where he and Beth squatted. The calm. Maybe it's meant to mean something, where you're laid down. Maybe that's why Aaron thinks it's bad.   
  
Daryl'd rather be laid out alone somewhere in nature anyway. Better than being stuck in some row, trapped under stone with too many neighbors. He'll take the woods any day. 

"Eric wanted to put on a play," Aaron says suddenly. "With the school? He was trying to convince Miss Caroline, but -"  
  
Miss Caroline is the old bitch who'd treated Daryl like he was radioactive and illiterate. He scoffs.   
  
"Yeah, she wasn't into it. Guess there aren't really enough kids, anyway. But still. That's your culture, Daryl." Aaron's voice is teasing. 

"I ain't Greek," Daryl says. He ain't anything. American, he guesses. Georgian. Maybe Scots-Irish all the way back, like Hershel's people. But guess he'll never know now. 

"No, it's - it belongs to all of western civilization, Daryl, not just the Greeks."  
  
"Ain't we in the east, though?"  


Aaron laughs and Daryl tenses - he wasn't trying to be funny. But Aaron stops laughing pretty quick and when he grins at Daryl it's still open, friendly. Not like he thinks Daryl's some stupid hick.   
  
"You never had to read that in school?"  
  
"Naw," Daryl mutters. He tries to remember what they did in school and finds the memories strangely blurry. He can remember going - catching the bus at first, when his mom was alive, having to get Merle or his dad to drive him or hitchhike when they moved to the cabin - the buses didn't run that far out. Remembers sitting in class, in the back, hoping no one would call on him so that nobody would look at him, so he wouldn't have to talk. He can see teachers, some of them, but he can't remember them teaching. He remembers Mr. Graff, who taught pre-algebra and had smacked a ruler over his desk so hard that it snapped in two. Coach Peterson, the high school PE teacher who used to give Daryl shit for not wearing the right clothes for gym and make him run endless laps. His third grade teacher, who'd had the baby, her name lost to him but her face, pointy and sharp, still there. He doesn't remember much anymore of what he'd studied or what he'd thought about while he was there, except that it was better sometimes than being at home.   
  
But only sometimes.   
  
"We read it in eleventh grade," Aaron says. Daryl hadn't even been planning on making it to eleventh grade. He shrugs.   
  
"How far did you get? In school?"  
  
Daryl's trying to do math in his head - if he'd been in ninth grade when shit went down and he was fourteen, and it'd probably been two years, or close to it, if he was pretending to be eighteen now then he'd have been in - "Dropped out," he mumbles. Fuck the math.   
  
"Oh," Aaron says. "Have - if you wanted, I'm sure you could talk to Miss Caroline. About -"  
  
"Yeah, I talked to her," Daryl says, picking at one ragged thumbnail. "She acted like I was some illiterate hick from bumfuck nowhere din't know nothin'." 

Aaron stifles a snort. "Well. I'm sure talking to her like that convinced her otherwise."  
  
Daryl feels the anger in his stomach, feels how it makes his fists clench. Sure, fucking fancy Aaron, with his nice boots and his snooty voice and his fucking old life, working for an NGO whatever the fuck that was, with his fancy boyfriend, sure he thought Daryl was trash, whatever, nothing new -

But before he can explode Aaron is talking again. "She's a piece of work. She let the kids do a Christmas pageant but when Eric volunteered to go down to help out she looked like she'd swallowed a lemon. Said she didn't need him near the kids, thanks." Daryl sees Aaron's face tighten, some of the same anger there that Daryl'd been feeling, and it makes his fists loosen a little. Oh. That's what Aaron had meant, when he'd told Daryl he was used to people getting used to him. That's what Aaron thought he understood.   
  
Maybe he understood better than Daryl had thought.   
  
"It's not like it's a top notch education down there at Miss Caroline's Garage Academy anyway," Aaron continues. "She hasn't taught since the seventies. I swear, I passed by once and she was talking about the Soviet Union like it actually still existed." Something falters and Aaron laughs again - but much more forced. "Although hell, what does it matter now?"  
  
Daryl bites at his finger and shrugs. "I'unno," he mumbles. "I ain't really never saw no point to it before anyway."  
  
Aaron looks at him. "Well, if you ever want to do something - I don't know, if you find any aspect of your education lacking, or whatever - feel free to ask us. Eric used to be a tutor, in college, and we've got enough books. We could probably figure out whatever you're wondering about."  
  
Daryl's not sure how he's meant to feel about that. On the one hand, fuck Aaron. He doesn't need his charity, doesn't need him looking down on Daryl like some fuck too dumb to finish high school. But on the other - Aaron doesn't sound like that. Like he thinks Daryl's dumb. He just sounds like - if Daryl had questions or wanted to figure something out, he could ask.   
  
So he doesn't quite know what to make of that.   
  
He still hasn't figured it out when Aaron reaches out and re-clips the radio to his belt, turning it off. The absence of the white noise makes the air feel weirdly still.   
  
"That's long enough," Aaron says. "Nobody communicating nearby. So - we pick a way." Aaron slings his backpack on, adjusts it. "This time I'll take point - there's a warehouse not that far from here I've been wanting to check out."  
  
Daryl just nods. Shoulders his bow.   
  
Follows.

* * *

"Normally, we leave the supply gathering to the runners," Aaron says as they walk. The area turns from woods to civilization fast - faster than it would in Georgia, Daryl thinks as they pick their way down the road. "Our focus is people. But I saw this on my way to look for you guys and thought it couldn't hurt to check it out. Besides, we may find signs of people there."  
  
Daryl grunts, keeps his eyes on the ground - looking for signs of life.   
  
"Why?"  
  
"It's a canned goods warehouse. It'd attract -"  
  
"Naw, meant -" Daryl shuffles forward a little. "Why you even looking?"  
  
Aaron looks at him. "Why not?"  
  
Daryl shrugs. "I don't mean -" He scowls and tries to figure out what he's trying to say. "I just mean -" he says slowly. "That like. It ain't like you'd need to. Bring people in. People'd come to you, eventually."  
  
"If they found us," Aaron says.   
  
"Yeah."  
  
"It's easier to find them first. Then, if we know they won't fit - we can send them on."  
  
Daryl imagines standing outside of the gates of Alexandria, wanting to be let in and being turned away.   
  
"We don't - we've only had to do that once," Aaron says. "Mostly, if they aren't the right fit, we just disappear and they never even know we exist. It's easier. And we let people in sometimes too, from the gate. That's how Enid joined us."  
  
Right.   
  
"What happens if they ain't right fit?" Daryl asks. And mostly he's wondering because it's only a matter of time, until they decide he's not right for them, for their place, their fake city. And when that happens - 

"We - ask them to leave," Aaron says. He looks at Daryl intently. "That's why it's so important that we - we have to be sure. When we ask someone back, we have to know it's the right decision. I can't -" Aaron swallows. "It's serious. To take someone in, to have to put them out again. So we don't take chances. We watch until we're sure."  
  
Daryl nods. Aaron watches him a moment longer, then goes to clap him on the shoulder. Daryl's able to stifle the flinch before it creeps out. Fuck.   
  
"Come on. Let's see what we see," Aaron says. And they keep on. 

* * *

Daryl thinks chain link is his favorite type of fence. 

It's a reasonable amount of walkers in the parking lot of the warehouse, and Daryl's acting almost before he knows it.   
  
"When we bring more people in - we're going to need to feed them," Aaron says, looking at the sign painted onto the side of the building. How the harvest gets home. It makes Daryl think of Hershel, back on his farm, in his suspenders, sleeves rolled up. He looks at Daryl. "You good with this many walkers?"  
  
Daryl doesn't answer. Just taps the fence. 

The walkers go down quick enough after that - Daryl's fast at this, a little faster than Aaron, probably because of fence duty at the prison. He pretends not to notice the way Aaron's eyebrows go up - like he's impressed? Daryl goes a little faster after that, and soon the lot is clear and they're in.   
  
There are signs of life here - tin cans on twine dangling from trucks, fishing line and strings going over walls with a reason that is lost on Daryl. The door to the warehouse is locked up tight. The trucks are all backed up, doors closed, and Daryl wonders if the battery will start. Maybe they just drive the trucks back, if it's a good haul. He imagines re-entering Alexandria with enough food for a month and wonders how much good will that would buy them.   
  
"Woah!" he hears Aaron say behind him, and when Daryl turns he's sure Aaron will have opened one of the trucks. But instead he's grinning like an idiot at a license plate. "Wasn't sure I'd ever see one of these!"  
  
And then he's grubbing around at the bottom of the truck with a screwdriver, prying it off.   
  
"Thought you lost 'em," Daryl says, watching.   
  
"Well. Nothing but time, now. Easy enough to start collecting again." He grins at Daryl. "Especially with this. Alaska. The last frontier."  
  
"First frontier if it's what you're gonna use to restart," Daryl mumbles, and he's surprised when Aaron laughs at that. Aaron acts like he's actually happy Daryl is with him, like Daryl's funny or smart or good at shit, in a way he's not used to. Like sure with Rick and Carol and them he knows they're glad he's with them but that's more of a given. They're not going to separate now, after everything. And it's not like they ever chose him. They got stuck with him and yeah, it worked out and yeah, they're glad he's there, but they didn't pick him for anything.   
  
Aaron did. And it's a weird feeling.   
  
"All right," Aaron says, straightening up, admiring the dirty rectangle of metal in his hands. "Let's see what else we've got."  
  
But when they open the door to the truck, all they've got is walkers.

* * *

The strings and line make sense to Daryl now - trap, it's a trap, they're all rigged so that even if they're able to fight their way through one truckbed of walkers there's more and more of them coming, and they barely make it to the car - Daryl slicing his way through, lashing out at some of them with a chain, stabbing one in the head, too close for the crossbow, too many, Aaron slamming the door to the car again and again until a walker's head is pulp and they're stuck there, in the car, surrounded by walkers.   
  
Walkers with W's carved into their heads.   
  
Daryl stares at them, mind whirring. He's seen that before, the W, outside Alexandria, Rick saw it outside Noah's place down near Richmond, that's -

Aaron is next to him, touching his face - there's a hit of blood there and for a second Daryl's heart seizes but the blood wipes away enough for Daryl to see it's just walker shit. He's so relieved not to be trapped in a car with someone infected that he lets out a laugh, little, breathless, barely more than a huff of air. 

But they're stuck in the world's tiniest car so of course Aaron hears it.   
  
"What?" he asks, and Daryl shrugs. The thumps and groans from outside the car are suddenly pressing in on him, the walls of the car simultaneously keeping him safe and stifling him.   
  
"Naw, s'just - wanted to come out here so I wouldn't feel all - closed up back there," he says, and Aaron's face is suddenly a rictus of pain. "S'matter? You bit?" He'd though the face blood was just spray from a walker but what if -

"I'm sorry," Aaron says. "I shouldn't have -"  
  
"I opened the door," Daryl says dully. And he had. He should have been able to hear the walkers, sense the movement, tell what was lying in wait. "Ain't -"  
  
"I shouldn't have brought you out here."  
  
Daryl's mad all of a sudden, which feels better than feeling trapped and scared. "Why not?" He says. "You think s'my fault you got stuck in here?" He had, though. 

"No! Of course not, it could have happened to - this isn't your fault," Aaron says fiercely. "I just - I shouldn't have let you be in this position."  
  
"Ain't nobody let me do nothin'," Daryl snarls. "I don't belong to nobody but me. I wanted to come. Even - even like this, this feels more like me than back in them houses." His brain catches up a minute later and he feels almost like he's blushing. Which is stupid because he's stuck in a car surrounded by walkers who are probably going to tear him apart but somehow he's embarrassed to let Aaron know how fucked up he is. That this somehow feels safer than going to Deanna's for a dinner party.   
  
But at least here, he can fight. He can fight with all he's got, to his last breath, he can make a plan and strike and he knows how to do that stuff. He knows how to fight. He doesn't know how to be polite, how to make people like him, how to interact. So it's not wrong what he's saying. But it doesn't make him any less fucked up.   
  
"S'messed up, right," Daryl says, so Aaron can't say it first.   
  
"No," Aaron says quietly. "It's not." A pause and Aaron's hand tentatively touches Daryl's shoulder. "You were trying."  
  
"I had to," Daryl says. Because that's what the others want. A normal life. But Daryl's not normal. He's dirty and trashy and scarred and he doesn't read books or go to school or know who the fuck Antigone is and he never would have fit into Alexandria even before all this happened. But he had to try so the others could be happy, be safe, so Judith could learn to fucking walk and talk without everyone picking her up and shushing her all the time.   
  
"You didn't," Aaron says. "You chose to."  
  
Yeah. Some choice. 

"Hey," Aaron says. "It's okay. It's - the glass will hold for a while. Right?"  
  
Daryl nods, once.   
  
"So - we can wait it out. We'll be all right." Aaron's hand on his shoulder gives a squeeze.   
  
"Yeah," Daryl says. He's not sure how true that is, but it's better than nothing, and he feels the gears in his head shift as he gets back into survival mode. Time to fight.   
  
He knows how to do that.   
  
"Maybe - maybe block their view," Daryl adds, looking around. "Could try and - use our jackets maybe, or cut up the seats, so they forget we're here -"  
  
"See? We'll be all right." Aaron lets go of Daryl's shoulder, the forced cheer making his voice a little too loud. "Wish I hadn't lost my backpack. Had some snacks in there. Would make this wait more enjoyable."  
  
Daryl huffs out a laugh - mirthless, but playing along with whatever Aaron's trying to do. He can't tell if Aaron most wants to cheer up Daryl or himself, but Daryl will let him. 

"What - apple sauce?" Daryl asks, and is rewarded with Aaron doing a full body shudder that looks only slightly exaggerated.   
  
"Ugh, no. Never."   
  
Daryl's starting to check the usual places - under the seat, inside the car door, the center console. There might be something they can use, something - he's got his lighter in his pocket, if he can find a notebook or a map or something maybe they can light it up and throw it out the window for a distraction, like he and Carol did in Atlanta - 

But the only thing he finds is a crumpled note. 

_TRAP_

_BAD PEOPLE_

_COMING_

_DONT STAY_

Fuck.

* * *

All the calm that had started to settle over him, the idea that they'd make a plan, figure this out, is gone.   
  
He hasn't felt trapped like this for a long time. It makes him feel like a kid again, at home in his bed in the dark hearing his dad tear the shit out of Merle, knowing that if Merle makes a run for it it'll be his turn next. It's Joe's arm pulling him in too close, the boxcar at Terminus, making a sandwich in the kitchen at the cabin and turning around and his dad is there right behind him and there's nowhere to go nowhere to hide just -

His breathing is too fast, he knows that, and his eyes are flickering all around the car, his body twisting, fight or flight kicking in but there's nothing to fight, nowhere to fly, nothing to do but wait and take it -

Aaron's hand touches his shoulder again and he flinches so hard his head smacks into the car window. The walkers outside get even more frenzied at that.   
  
"Daryl -"  
  
"Don't!" Daryl hears himself saying. "Don't touch me, don't -"  
  
Aaron's hand lets go like it's been burned. "I - sorry. Daryl, sorry, I didn't mean -" Aaron sounds upset now and somehow that is helping to bring Daryl back down. Because he's being weird, he's being a fucking spaz and a pussy and Aaron can see him and he doesn't want Aaron to know, he doesn't want anyone to know, how fucked up he is, how in his head he's still some scared stupid kid trying to -

"I - whatever," Daryl says, and he feels his breathing start to settle. "I - sorry, whatever, I'm - I'm okay."  
  
"I'm not," Aaron says frankly. "It's - you don't have to apologize." A long moment. "I'm sorry, Daryl."  
  
"Ain't on you, said a'ready," Daryl says. His breathing is getting slower and slower and he tries not to make eye contact with Aaron. "Can handle myself."  
  
"All right." An even longer moment. "You know what you said? About - about being in Alexandria?"  
  
Daryl can't look at Aaron. He nods, jerkily, once.   
  
"I feel better in here than I'd feel being forced to eat applesauce at my mom's house."  
  
That makes Daryl look at Aaron. Aaron's looking gently at Daryl, not exactly smiling, but he doesn't look like he's totally kidding either.   
  
Oh. Maybe Aaron's trying to say he's a little fucked up too.   
  
"Applesauce sucks," Daryl says, and that does garner a smile from Aaron.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
Daryl's breathing is totally back to normal now, and so is his brain. Fuck that note. The bad people aren't here yet, and they're going to get out before they come. It's no different than slipping out a window or creeping past his dad when he's sleeping, than building makeshift weapons in Terminus. Than figuring out how to sneak away from Joe. He did all those things and he's still here and he's going to be here a long time yet so fuck that. 

"We should do inventory," Daryl says, and he starts emptying his pockets.   
  
He's got his lighter, his knife, a handful of rope for snares, three acorns, and his bandana.  
  
Fuck. He can see the brightly colored fletching of his arrows outside - he must have dropped the bow trying to get into the car. Not that it'd be that useful, but it's another thing he doesn't have.   
  
Aaron's got a machete, a bent and bloody rectangle that might have been been the Alaska license plate, and - 

"Oh," Aaron says, reaching around to his waist. 

The radio.

* * *

They have a plan. It's a shitty plan, but it's a plan, and that's enough for Daryl.   
  
They can't call Alexandria. They're out of range, and who knows when they'd show up? But Aaron's got the radio turned as loud as it can go, some crackling and ringing frequency that's already giving Daryl a headache.   
  
They throw that, they pull some of them off. One of them goes out first, the other follows - one door, so they can use the car as a buffer. They head for the fence. 

But they can't figure out who goes first.  
  
"I'll go," Aaron says, and Daryl shakes his head.   
  
"Should be my side. My bow's there - I can get to it, that gives us better chance of making the fences."  
  
"I'm not letting you go out there alone," Aaron says heatedly.   
  
"Ain't your decision," Daryl mumbles. It isn't like he wants to go first. He knows how dangerous it is, knows better than Aaron, maybe. But it's what makes sense.   
  
"You're just a -"  
  
"I ain't," Daryl says. Because he knows what Aaron's going to say. Because it happens every time. Every time someone is like "Oh no, Daryl shouldn't do that, he's a kid." And someone is like, "We can find another way." But if there was another way, they never would have asked Daryl in the first place. He knows that. He hasn't felt like a kid for a long time but soon he really won't be one - soon he'll really be eighteen, instead of pretending. What will change so substantially in two years? In five? What separates him so much from Rosita and Maggie, from Beth and Glenn? A handful of years. At what point will they stop pretending that making him sit out is for his own protection, instead of it being something they do for themselves?   
  
Aaron looks at him and nods, slowly, almost angrily. But Daryl doesn't care about that.   
  
"I shouldn't have said that," Aaron says. "You're not going out there alone."  
  
He peeks through his hair at Aaron, who nods firmly at him. "We do it together. Both of us."  
  
Daryl nods. Swallows. Okay. This is it.   
  
"On three," Daryl says. "One - two -"  
  
Three.

* * *

They never do their plan because someone else came up with a better one.   
  
Some crazy guy smacking walkers away with a stick, stabbing them in the eye, clearing a path. Daryl knifes one, scoops up his bow, clobbers another. He hears Aaron grunt to the side, hears the splat of a knife cleaving soft walker flesh.   
  
And then they're on the other side of the fence and they found a person after all.   
  
Daryl watches the man warily as he wipes down his stick with a rag. People don't do something for nothing. So why'd this guy do it? What if he's the bad person who the note warned them about, what if he's the one who was coming and now he's pretending so that - 

But all he does is wipe down his stick.   
  
"That - that was -" Aaron is out of breath and Daryl doesn't know if it's from fighting or from astonishment. "Wow! That -" He gathers his breath and smiles at Daryl, a kind of adrenaline fueled face of relief that Daryl can't quite get to. "I'm Aaron, this is Daryl." Daryl stays wary but nods, once.   
  
The guy with the stick hesitates. "Morgan," he says quietly.   
  
"Why?" It takes Daryl a moment to realize it came from him.   
  
Morgan stares at him for a moment with smooth, unreadable eyes. Then, a small smile. "Because all life is precious, son."   
  
Fuck. Another preacher.   
  
"Whoever set that trap, they're coming," Aaron says, sounding pretty sure that the trap isn't already here. But I have good news. We do," Aaron adds, turning to Daryl. "We've got a community -"  
  
"I thank you," Morgan says. "But I'm on my way somewhere."   
  
Aaron looks a little stunned. Maybe no one's ever said no to him before. Maybe he's only said no to other people.   
  
"Fact is, I'm lost," Morgan says, and he pulls out a map. Holds it out. "If you could tell me where we are -"  
  
He's holding the map out to Daryl, but he doesn't move to take it. Morgan's eyes shift - somehow look different than before, almost sad. So Daryl grabs the maps and flips it open because fuck Father Morgan and his fucking sad eyes, fuck -

_The new world's going to need Rick Grimes._

Daryl leans back. Looks at Morgan. Notices things he didn't before - the body armor, down on his legs, like they used to have at the prison. The tone of his voice, Georgia smooth.   
  
"Daryl?" Aaron says. "What is it?"  
  
Daryl doesn't know.   
  
But he's not sure it's good. 


	2. Home Sweet Home

Morgan disappears practically as soon as they hit the gates - Rick's eyes are bugging out, but his guard never wavers, and soon Morgan is in the basement of the townhouse and the whole town is buzzing about what's going to happen next. 

Daryl walks the bike over to Aaron's garage - he's not sure if he should park it in the lot with the cars or keep it in there, but Daryl figures it's closer to him if it's at Aaron's, so he might as well. He's in better shape than he usually is after a disaster like that - his gait is steady and even and apart for some bumps and bruises, nothing needs fixing. But he still feels sort of shaky. Maybe not even from the walkers themselves, maybe from that moment in the car, trapped and knowing -   
  
But they hadn't been trapped, Daryl reminds himself as he parks the bike, gives it a once over, grabs his bow off the back. They hadn't been. They'd gotten out.   
  
Because of Morgan.   
  
There's a creak behind him and he spins too fast to see Eric standing at the door leading into the house.   
  
"How's your baby? All settled in?"  
  
Daryl doesn't even have the energy to argue that it's not a baby. "Yeah," he mumbles.   
  
"I'm fixing Aaron something to eat - he looks beat. Want to join?"  
  
Daryl hesitates. He should go find Carol, tell her he's all right. But once he gets back to the house he bets everyone else will be there - Rosita, Abraham, Glenn, Maggie, Beth, maybe even Tara from the infirmary, everyone, asking questions about Morgan, about what happened, about if he's all right, and the idea of having to wade through a group of people who care about him is enough to make him want to spit.   
  
"I - yeah, okay," he says, and Eric doesn't do anything in response except open the door wider and let Daryl in.   
  
Aaron's sitting at the table, looking exhausted. Whatever giddy adrenaline had hit him outside the warehouse, it'd gotten lost somewhere between there and Alexandria. Daryl wonders if Aaron and Morgan talked at all on the way back, if he'd learned anything else. But if he did, it wasn't anything interesting enough to perk Aaron up.

"Sit," Eric says. He's hobbling only a little now. "I made spaghetti - I know, I know. Everyone's comfort food in the apocalypse. But it's warm."  
  
"That's all Eric can really make," Aaron says from the table. "Spaghetti."  
  
"I was good at grilling! I could make a mean hamburger -"  
  
Daryl lets their chatter wash over him mindlessly as Eric serves him up a plate.   
  
"Well," Eric says as he settles in at the table next to Aaron. "You made it through your first recruiting run!"  
  
Aaron, who was rubbing at his eyes, looks alarmed at the tone. "Eric -"  
  
"What? It's true. And you even brought someone back! Better than I've done in most of my runs."  
  
Daryl's trying to figure out if Eric doesn't know what happened or if he just doesn't care, and either way it's making Daryl loosen a little because at least they're not talking about how badly he fucked up his first recruiting run. 

"Guess," he mumbles as he shoves spaghetti into his mouth. It's good. 

"They're uh - usually less eventful," Aaron says gingerly, winding pasta around his fork in a way that makes Daryl realize that some people don't get sauce and shit all over them when they eat. "Next time -"  
  
Daryl's ears perk up at that.   
  
"You're - next time?" he asks, unable to keep the disbelief in his voice.   
  
"I - not that you'll have to - god, if you've decided you're good, then no problem, say no more," Aaron says, almost babbling. "It's totally not a requirement or -"  
  
"Naw, I mean - you'll - take me again?" Daryl sort of hates the way his voice sounds now - like some dumb kid, begging or something, or -   
  
"I - of course." Aaron's looking at Daryl straight on, his eyes gentle. "You did - I don't know if we'd have made it long enough for Morgan to do any good if you hadn't been there. You more than held your own."  
  
Daryl's whole face suddenly feels bright red and he's very interested in his spaghetti.   
  
"Besides," Aaron says, that teasing tone back in his voice, "I don't know that we really needed Morgan anyway. We had a pretty good plan, didn't we?"  
  
Daryl thinks of their plan and can't help but stifle a snort.   
  
"Hey, with limited materials, I think that's a pretty solid B+ on the planning front," Aaron continues, eyes crinkling. "I'd have given us an A- if we'd figured out how to work in the Alaska license plate -"  
  
"You found an Alaskan license plate?!" Eric asks suddenly, choking over a mouthful of pasta.

Daryl's more than happy to sit back and watch Eric's hopes get raised and immediately dashed over something as dumb as license plate collections.

* * *

He stays long enough that he figures Rick'll be back at the house by now and he'll have answered the big questions. And Daryl'd forgotten that they're split now amongst a couple different places. So when he gets back, it's just to Rick, sitting on the sofa with Judith asleep on his chest.   
  
"Hey," he says, but it's low and quiet and he doesn't get up.   
  
"Hey," Daryl says, and he makes sure to close the door as gentle as he can. "Where's Carol?"  
  
"In the kitchen," Rick says. He's got one hand on the little asskicker's back. "How're you?"  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Fine."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Daryl shrugs again. He'd said, hadn't he?   
  
"What's gonna happen with Morgan?" Daryl asks instead. He thinks of the man calmly wiping down his stick, that tattered map, the miles he must have come - for Rick.   
  
Rick sighs, which makes the kicker fuss a little on his chest. "We'll see," Rick just says. "He's in a safe place for tonight. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow." He looks at Daryl. "How'd he seem to you?"  
  
All life is precious, Morgan'd said. Daryl doesn't shrug this time. Thinks about it. How had Morgan seemed?  
  
"Mean - mostly he seemed a'right," Daryl says slowly. "But maybe that's because he rescued us from that car. Maybe anybody'd seem a'right after that."  
  
Rick nods. "Fair."  
  
 _All life is precious._ "He - I mean, ain't like I know him or nothin'," Daryl said slowly. "But he coulda just left us. Woulda figured out where he was eventually. Din't need to help us out. Din't even know who we were."  
  
"Hm," Rick says. He looks at Daryl. "Close one today?"  
  
Daryl thinks. "Had closer," he says.   
  
"Sure," Rick says, eyes closed. Daryl watches his hand slowly rise and fall with Judith's deep, sleeping breaths. "Go see Carol," Rick says. "She's been waiting for you."  
  
A stab of guilt. "You told her I was okay though, right?"  
  
"Of course. But you know her. She wants it from the horses mouth, so. Go on."  
  
"Ain't a horse," Daryl mumbles, and is rewarded with a gentle huff of laughter from Rick. 

Carol is in the kitchen. She's got a cup of tea next to her and she starts a little when Daryl comes in.   
  
"There you are. Hungry?"  
  
He shakes his head. "Ate at Aaron's."  
  
Carol nods. "You all right?"  
  
He nods back. Carol's eyes narrow.   
  
"You lying?"  
  
Daryl thinks about it for a long moment. "Naw," he says finally. "Jus' - long day."  
  
Carol studies him. Then nods. "Yeah. Here too."  
  
"Aaron said - he'd take me out again. On the next recruiting run."  
  
Carol frowns. "He's already planning the next?"  
  
"Nothin' specific. Just said, you know. That - I could go next time." Daryl shrugs. "Thought he'd - just, after today I thought he'd never -"  
  
"Someone laid a trap and you got caught in it. That's not your fault."  
  
"Did Rick tell you? About -" Daryl's hand sketches a W on his forehead and his skin tingles.   
  
"Yeah." Carol's face is grim. "We'll - we'll figure it out."  
  
"It was nice to be out, though," Daryl says. "I mean - 'fore all that." It was nice to look out and have an uninterrupted view. In Alexandria, however far you look, eventually you'll hit a wall.  
  
"Yeah, pookie. I know." Carol walks over towards him with her cup of tea and stops next to him. Smooths a hand over his hair, then leans in and kisses his forehead.   
  
"I'm glad you're back safe."  
  
"Sorry," he says.   
  
"What's there to apologize for? You're home," Carol says.   
  
Yeah. Home. 

* * *

Alexandria is home now, Daryl guesses - it's home because Rick and Carl and the kicker are there, Glenn and Maggie, Beth and Carol. It's home because he has the bike to work on and because Judith can crawl around on the floor and babble baby words at the top of her lungs.   
  
It's home because there's a tension in the air that spells trouble and Daryl knows it's only a matter of time until that trouble spills out onto him.   
  
Some of the Alexandrians are pissed at Rick and not trying too hard to hide it. Deanna's a ghost of her former self, drifting around with Maggie by her side, trying to jostle her back to leading. In the mean time, Rick takes charge, like he always does, and Daryl can see how it rubs up against some of the Alexandrians wrong. The second run crew gets back, Heath and Annie and Scott, and Daryl wonders what it looks like to them. Like a coup or something. There's a new sheriff in town.   
  
At least Rick's back in his normal clothes instead of that cop uniform.  
  
Daryl tries to lay low, because he knows if the Alexandrians hate Rick, they probably hate Daryl just as much. Aaron never acts that way, or Eric, but Daryl catches glances from the others all the time. Especially Ron - Ron's eyes are like poison any time he sees Daryl or Carl or any of them. But somehow the way Ron looks at Daryl is different and he knows it's just a matter of time until that spills over on him too.

It doesn't take much time. He's on his way to Aaron's garage when someone shoves him from behind and Daryl reacts before he thinks, a punch, a tackle, hand scrabbling for his knife. But it's just Ron (although is just the right word?), panting like he's run a marathon, knocked on his ass on the ground.   
  
Daryl's not sure what to do. Anyone else did that to him, he'd deck them and fuck the consequences. But it's weird with Ron now, he knows that. So he just squints at him and scowls.   
  
"The fuck you want?"  
  
Ron's pulling himself up off the ground and he doesn't seem any less angry from getting knocked down. Daryl peeks around - this is Alexandria, and there's always people watching. Probably they're itching for an excuse to get into it with Rick's people, and they'd rally behind Ron, the kid whose dad Rick killed. But for once, it seems empty, not a person in sight.   
  
Still, Daryl's careful as Ron gets back up.

"Carl told me," Ron spits. "How Rick cuffed your dad on that roof and left him for dead."  
  
Why had Carl told him that? Daryl knows there's got to be some clearer context, some reason, but he can't figure it out. No one's talked about that amongst Rick's people for a long time. Some of the new ones, Abraham and Rosita, Eugene, Tara, they probably don't even know the story. "So?"  
  
"So - you let him do that, to your dad -"  
  
"Din't let him do nothin'," Daryl says. "Wasn't even there." He tries not to think about that, not since his dad died. There's no point to any of it.   
  
"Just stayed with Rick, followed him around like a puppy, the guy who murdered your -"  
  
"He didn't kill him," Daryl says. He feels bizarrely relieved that Carl hadn't told Ron this part. "I did."  
  
Ron stares.   
  
"He - we didn't find him again for a while," Daryl says. He's not sure he owes this to Ron, not sure he owes it to anybody, but it's coming out and he doesn't try and stop it. "When we did - he was gonna -" Daryl shrugs. "Was him or me," he says, and he believes it. He'd never really doubted it.   
  
"You - you killed your -" Ron looks sick and then furious. "Just because you're some psycho -"  
  
"Man, he whupped me bloody and was bringin' me back to some guy wanted to kill me," Daryl spits, also angry. "Wadn't like he was no saint. Your dad weren't either."  
  
"Don't!" Ron looks crazy now. "You - don't say anything about my dad, you don't know him, you don't -"  
  
Yeah. Daryl doesn't.   
  
"He - he was getting better," Ron hisses. "You don't know, he - it was like that before, when I was little, and he got better, he hadn't - for years, he hadn't done anything until all this, he was better - "  
  
A pang, then. Daryl's dad had never been better. He'd always just been what he was, even when Daryl's mom was alive.   
  
He wonders if that's better or worse.  
  
"He killed Reg," Daryl points out. Because that's irrefutable and is, ostensibly, the reason Pete is dead.  
  
"That was an accident!" Ron argues, and for a second Daryl can see Ron's life written on his skin. Where every good thing his dad did was intentional and every bad thing was an accident and accidents happen, you can't stop them, they're part of being human.   
  
Daryl's dad had never done anything by accident. Well, except maybe the time he broke Daryl's arm, it wasn't like he'd grabbed him hoping to snap his bone. But he'd meant to hurt him, sure, and he'd never apologized or anything, never said he was sorry, he hadn't meant to, it was a mistake -  
  
"Sam -" Daryl starts, and Ron cuts him off fiercely.   
  
"Sam's a pussy, just because he can't - Dad never even did anything to him, he had no right to be spreading shit all over town -"  
  
"Your mom tol' Rick -"  
  
"And my mom either!" Ron's sweating and his fists are trembling with some sort of effort - trying not to hit Daryl? Trying to psych himself up to? "She - she's the one who kept messing up, if she didn't want him to get mad she shouldn't have - "  
  
That makes Daryl feel sick. He doesn't remember ever thinking that Merle should have tried to get along, that his mom should have - 

"I'm going to kill him," Ron says, an ugly sneer on his face. It sounds like a little kid talking tough but it makes Daryl tense because even little kids can cause damage with the right tools.   
  
"You try and he'll kill you," Daryl says simply.   
  
Ron's face is a mix of fury and fear and he shoves Daryl again. "Just because you're so weak you'll follow the guy who killed your -"  
  
"Man, I a'ready said, Rick din't do that, I did," Daryl says quietly. His shoulders twitch, once, the memory of how it felt, the knife sliding into the slick mess of his father's head, the smell of blood in the air ghosting over him.   
  
"I'll never pick Rick," Ron hisses. "I don't care if he tries to fuck my mom or play happy families, I'm never, ever -"  
  
"He don't want that," Daryl says simply, which maybe is only half true - there's something between Jessie and Rick he can't quite name, something he doesn't think about. But he knows Rick doesn't want to move into Ron's house and pretend to be Pete.   
  
"I'll kill him before he does any of that," Ron says. "And Carl -"  
  
Suddenly Daryl's not able to keep as calm as he had been. Rick can handle himself. Carl can too, but he's a head shorter than Ron and if Ron sneaks up on him -  
  
"You try an' I'll kill you myself," Daryl says, shoving Ron back so hard the other boy sprawls on the ground again. "He ain't done nothin' to you."  
  
"Trying to steal my girlfriend, his dad killed my -"  
  
"Man, Enid don't belong to you," Daryl says fiercely, "And Carl ain't done nothing. If you -"  
  
"Hey!" Daryl hears from behind him, and he take a step back before he knows he's doing it. He knows that voice. That's the vice principal or the recess monitor or some teacher coming up on a fight, getting ready to break them up. "What's going on here?"  
  
It's one of the men whose been whispering about Rick all over town. He leans down and helps Ron up, his eyes fixed on Daryl.   
  
"He bothering you, Ron?"  
  
"No," Ron says sullenly, letting the other man help him up. "I'm fine, Carter."  
  
Carter looks between Daryl and Ron, and Daryl says nothing. He knows how this goes. He'd started most of the fights he'd been in at school - it'd been his preferred way to cover up bruises he wasn't meant to have. But enough of them had been started by other people, people who laughed at his trashy background, his threadbare clothes. And even when someone else had started it, had thrown the first punch, it was always Daryl that went down for it. He's used to it.   
  
"Come on," Carter says to Ron. "I could use your help with something." He looks Daryl up and down, a look of pure disgust. "I'll be talking to your - people about this," Carter says, and Daryl can hear the moment that Carter realizes there isn't a dad or a mom to talk to about him, which makes Daryl scowl harder. "This isn't appropriate behavior. We won't tolerate it here. Got me?"  
  
"Whatever," Daryl mutters, and he turns to walk away.   
  
"I mean it! There's consequences for this kind of thing here! You'd better think about that the next time you -"  
  
Daryl flips the man the finger, then immediately regrets it. He didn't need to piss anybody off more than they already were. But it's too late to take it back, so he just makes his way to Aaron's garage as quickly as possible and shuts himself in.   
  
Fuck. Alexandria.   
  
Home sweet home.  
  



	3. First Time Again

"That kid is a menace."

Daryl's looking for Carol. He's edgy after what happened earlier, with Ron. He looked for Carl but he couldn't find the other boy anywhere. Enid's missing too, and Daryl tries not to think about what ammunition that might give Ron. Worst case he could tell Rick, but Rick's edgy by himself right now and Daryl's not sure telling him Ron threatened to kill Carl is the smartest decision. He figured the pantry is as good a place to check as any.   
  
But that's before he hears the others talking.   
  
"Carl seems all right. Mikey says -" a woman starts, and the first man - Carter, he thinks - cuts her off.  
  
"Not Carl. The other one."  
  
"Dixon," someone else says, and Daryl shivers.   
  
"Saw him pushing around Ron earlier. Had him down on the ground. It's not enough his people killed Ron's dad -"  
  
Someone shifts. "Pete killed Reg. And Jessie says -"  
  
"We don't use capital punishment to punish abusers," Carter says angrily.   
  
"He still killed Reg," another man - maybe Tobin - says. 

Yeah. Because it's easy for them to push off whatever was happening to Jessie without even a mention of what he was doing to Sam or Ron.

"Doesn't give that kid any right to bully Ron - he's older than Ron and he's dangerous, you've seen that crossbow, he -"  
  
"I think he's just quiet," a woman says. Maybe Olivia. "He's been by here and he was - you know, maybe a little shy -"  
  
He almost laughs at that.  
  
"But Aaron likes him," she continues. "He's been taking him out. On recruiting missions. Says Daryl's -"  
  
"Yeah, and Aaron's some great judge of character? Look who he brought in here!"  
  
A pause. "Look, Carter, I'm not saying - but his people know what they're doing. Rick is - I don't know if I have a read on him, but Glenn and Maggie? They're solid folks. Abraham - he saved Francine when we were out there. Let's not -"  
  
"What? You want us to end up like that? Running around like that Dixon kid, some killing machine?" This makes something tense inside Daryl. "That's not what this place is. We were doing all right, without them."   
  
"But what are you saying, Carter? You're saying you want - "  
  
"I'm saying they're dangerous and they want us to be dangerous too. And how many of us will die as a result? We already lost Aiden and Frankie - sorry, Spencer." A moment. "And you saw, when we were out on the wall yesterday, finishing the expansion, and those roamers came out of nowhere and Rick didn't even try to -"  
  
"He wanted us to do it ourselves," someone says uncomfortably.   
  
"He was risking our lives to prove that point! What's the good of having them here if they don't even do what they're good at?"  
  
"His people stopped it," Tobin says. "Deanna wouldn't want -"  
  
"Deanna's asleep at the wheel. I'm sorry, Spencer." Spencer, Carter, Tobin. Maybe Olivia. Some other woman, the one who talked about Mikey. Daryl repeats the names in his head, over and over, so when he tells the others he knows who he's talking about. "You heard what the priest said." The fucking preacher. "About him, about his people, he was right. How many of us have to die before we do something? Because pretty soon, it's gonna be too late."  
  
"Carter," Olivia says, her voice shaking a little. "You have to be really careful here. You're talking about us going to Deanna and telling her - "  
  
"No, I'm not talking about talking some more," Carter spits out. "About meetings, I'm not talking about that. Plain and simple? We kill him, before he kills us."  
  
Daryl stops breathing. That's when the crash comes.   
  
For a moment he thinks he did something and he's frozen. But then he realizes the noise came from the hallway. From someone else.   
  
It's a relief until he hears Eugene's dumb voice, shaking.   
  
"Hello."  
  
"Carter," someone says.  
  
"He heard."  
  
"I didn't," Eugene says quickly. Daryl checks himself. He only has his knife - he left the bow at home, stupid, trying to get these fucking people to accept him has only made him weaker -  
  
"He heard," Carter says again. And then there's the click of a hammer being cocked.   
  
Shit.   
  
Daryl starts creeping around - he knows there's a door between the armory and the pantry, maybe he can sneak up behind them, take one of them hostage - Olivia's probably the best bet and he tries not to think about her eyes, how scared she'll be when Daryl grabs her, puts his knife to her throat, threatens -

"Carter, don't! You can't!"   
  
But then, just as Daryl's about to make his move, the front door opens and it's Rick and thank fucking god.   
  
"What the hell is going on?" Rick says, and Daryl changes direction, looping around so he appears behind Eugene in the hallway, so that they have them caught on both sides. Rick sees him first, eyes serious, scanning. Daryl just nods. He's all right. "What are you doing?"  
  
"I'm taking this place back from you," Carter says, and Daryl gives him credit for the fact he doesn't lie about it.   
  
"That's what you were talking about in here?" Rick asks, eyes on Eugene, on Daryl. Daryl nods. So does Eugene, his hands still up and quivering in the air, Carter's gun still trained on him.   
  
"That's what _he_ was talking about," Tobin says.   
  
Rick's using the slow, calm cop voice, the one he used to use on Daryl all the time. "See, I would have - I would have set up some lookouts," Rick says mildly, and Daryl sees Olivia flinch. Abraham, behind Rick, has his arms crossed on his chest, watching everything with hooded eyes. Morgan next to him. "That would have been the smart thing. You know, if I happened to -"  
  
And then Rick has the gun and Rick has Carter and it's over.   
  
Or maybe not.   
  
"You really think you're gonna take this community from us? From Glenn? From Michonne? From Daryl? From me? Do you have any idea who you're talking to?" Rick looks mad again, and Daryl feels himself tense up. He can see Olivia, her eyes full of tears, Tobin, looking shamefaced. Spencer, whose face is unreadable. Behind Rick, Abraham, resigned.   
  
And Morgan. _All life is precious._  
  
He remembers Olivia sketching out a pasta maker for him on paper, asking him for the leg of a boar. Her voice, in the armory just a few minutes ago - _I think he's just quiet. Maybe a little shy.  
  
_ "Rick," he says quietly, and Rick looks at him, his eyes vividly blue.   
  
"I'm good," Rick says, and he actually does sound it. "I'm good." He hands the gun to Daryl, handle first. Daryl takes it, tries not to notice how the Alexandrian's eyes all track him as he checks it, shoves it in his waistband.  
  
"You can try to work with us," Rick says, calm again. "You can try to survive. Would you do that?"  
  
Carter seems to be waiting for something - for an ultimatum, for a threat. But Rick just looks at him, levelly.   
  
Carter nods, once. Quickly.   
  
"All right then," Rick says. "Daryl, c'mere."  
  
Daryl steps around Carter, feels relieved to be back by Rick. Rick claps a hand on his shoulder. "Eugene?"  
  
Eugene is much less graceful. It's a wonder he doesn't overturn the whole shelving unit as he clambers to his feet, sweating profusely.   
  
"Let's go," Rick says.   
  
And they do, the Alexandrians - Tobin, Spencer, Olivia, the still kneeling Carter, some other woman - watching as they walk away. 

* * *

Carol's looking him over back at the house.   
  
"They didn't even know I was there," Daryl grumbles, letting her run her hands over his forehead. "M'fine. Eugene's the one that fell."  
  
"That is correct," Eugene says from where he's sitting at the table. "I was just looking for preserves of some nature to spread on my toast, because a dry toast is one of nature's greatest evils -"  
  
"Eugene, shut up," Carol says, and Eugene does.   
  
Morgan's leaning against the wall in the corner and Daryl doesn't know why he's here.   
  
"They're dangerous," Carol says, and Daryl almost laughs at that, at how similar it is to what the Alexandrians are saying.   
  
Rick nods, rubbing at one side of his face. "Yeah," he says. And he seems exhausted. "Well. Not for long."  
  
Carol looks at him. So does Morgan.   
  
Morgan pushes away from the wall and slips out the back door. Rick watches him go.   
  
"I just mean," Rick says, to his audience of Daryl and Carol, of Eugene, "that pretty soon, that'll change. One way or another." Rick gets up. "Excuse me."   
  
Daryl's pretty sure he's following Morgan out but he doesn't check. Carol's peering into his eyes.   
  
"What else'd they say?" Carol asks him. Daryl shrugs.   
  
"Nothin' that matters." He's sure she knows how the other people in the town look at him, think about him. Not like he needs to say it.   
  
But Eugene does. "They started with casting aspersions on Daryl's good character, which is how I should have known they were about to go down some truly strange and seditionary routes -"  
  
Daryl flushes. "Eugene man, shut up," he mumbles.   
  
"I think there's some preserves at Glenn and Maggie's house," Carol says. "If you try there -"  
  
But Eugene is already up. "Good thinking."   
  
And then it's just Daryl and Carol.   
  
"Got in a fight," Daryl says quickly, before Carol can push. "With Ron, earlier." He doesn't say Ron started it. That feels childish, and useless. It wasn't something he'd done even before the dead started walking. He wasn't no snitch.   
  
"He's angry," Carol says. There's understanding in her voice but it's not sympathy. It's unyielding, and for a flash Daryl almost feels bad for Ron. "He's lashing out."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Guess. He - said some stuff. 'Bout wantin' to kill Rick." This doesn't look like it shocks Carol. "An' Carl." That doesn't shock her either, although her mouth does set into a thin line.   
  
"You told Carl yet?"  
  
"Naw. Ain't seen him."  
  
"You told Rick?"  
  
He thinks of Rick, angry, gun pressed to the back of Carter's head. Daryl shakes his head.   
  
"You think he could do it?" Carol asks, and Daryl thinks. Could Ron do it? He could do anything, and he's mad enough. Would Ron do it? Probably, if he got the right chance.   
  
Will Ron do it? Daryl doesn't know.   
  
Could Ron beat Carl? He's not sure of that either. 

"People can do anything," he just says, and Carol nods.   
  
"Try and keep clear of him. And Sam. Tell Carl, too."  
  
Daryl nods, although he frowns a little. Carol notices it. "What?"  
  
"Sam ain't - like that." Sam's not. Sam doesn't have that anger behind his eyes like Ron, the instant urge to make fists. The glimpses Daryl's had of Sam, since Pete died, haven't shown Daryl anything in his eyes except torment. He probably didn't want to talk to Daryl ever again - look what had happened after the first time - but if Sam approached him, Daryl wasn't sure he'd send him away.   
  
"It doesn't matter," Carol says, matter of factly. "He's weak. He could get used without even knowing it."  
  
Carol's right.   
  
But it doesn't make it nicer to hear, her writing Sam off like some kind of acceptable loss.   
  
Until he sees the twitch at the corner of her mouth, the flash of something complicated in her eyes. Maybe Carol feels guilty too, for the way Sam looks. Maybe she's trying to protect Sam from Ron as much as she's trying to protect Daryl and Carl.   
  
Maybe she wishes things were different but they aren't and so Daryl nods and Carol tucks his bangs behind his ears. 

"Good," she says.   
  
And that's that. 

* * *

The next day, Beth comes with him to Aaron's garage to see the bike. 

She hasn't been before - maybe because she's been with Judith most days, maybe because she actually doesn't give a shit about bikes - but that morning, Carl plonked Judith into the stroller. Carl had taken Daryl's warning the night before like Daryl was warning him some kid wanted to jump him in the playground after school, and Daryl's not sure how to feel about it as Carl straps Judith in.   
  
"Are you sure?" Beth asked. "I can -"  
  
"She's my sister," Carl said, rolling his eyes. He smiled at Beth. "Let us have family time."  
  
And then Carl sets off and Beth has a free day. The adults all have their shit to do - Maggie and Deanna are off inspecting fields or some shit, Abraham working with his crew on fences somewhere, and Rick took a big group out - mixed, mostly Alexandrians - to deal with a herd Glenn had seen on a run.   
  
"No time like the present," Rick said, and Daryl notices everyone talking treason in the armory is in the group, except for Olivia and Tobin, whose probably off with Abraham working on the expansion.  
  
"Should I -" Daryl asks, taking a step to get his bow, and Rick shakes his head.   
  
"No. Stay. Time for them to get their feet wet." Rick looks at the Alexandrians with a crease between his eyebrows. "Past time."  
  
So Daryl and Beth both have the day off and, like the worst teenagers in the world, they have no idea what to do with it. 

They look at each other in awkward silence until Daryl finally blurts out "Uh - want to see the bike?"  
  
"God, yes," Beth says, and they set off, Daryl grabbing his bow as they leave. After yesterday, he's done getting caught without it. He doesn't care how it looks.   
  
They don't have to talk when they walk together and Daryl likes that. It's like their time alone, only each other for company, and Daryl realizes, as they walk, that he's missed it. He wonders if he could convince her to go out hunting with him sometime, give her another crossbow lesson, or if she doesn't care about that stuff now that they're behind walls.   
  
Daryl takes Beth in through the garage door and shuts it behind them and it's like they're back in that cabin in the woods again, or maybe the funeral home. Just a level of comfort that Daryl hasn't felt in Alexandria maybe ever.   
  
"Well. Uh. That's it," Daryl says, and Beth goes over.   
  
"Wow. It's a lot different than Shawn's bike." Beth grins at him. "I mean - it's a real motorcycle."  
  
"Yeah," Daryl says.   
  
"Can't believe you put it together by yourself."  
  
"Lotta it was a'ready done," Daryl says. He perches on the work table and watches Beth sling a leg over the bike.   
  
"What do you think? I look cool?"  
  
Beth, in her pink peasant top and her cowboy boots, the scars on her face barely visible in the weird florescence of the garage, grinning goofily at him, is maybe the least cool thing he's seen. "Fuckin' tough," he says.  
  
"You're one to talk." She gets off the bike and settles herself on one of the tool benches near the bike. She looks at him. "You doing all right?"  
  
Daryl shrugs, and Beth rolls her eyes. "M'okay," he says, trying not to think about that moment trapped in the car, about freaking out when Aaron rode on the bike with him, the itchy, antsy feeling that never leaves him as long as he's locked up behind Alexandria's walls. The way Carol's normal lady act unnerves him, makes him feel like she's going to wipe him off her boots and move forward without him. That Ron's out for blood, that Rick can't decide whether he wants Alexandria or not. How nothing feels the same here as it was at the prison, or out on the road, and he doesn't think that's a good thing.   
  
"M'fine," he says instead. "What 'bout you?"  
  
Beth's never had a good poker face, and he sees a list of the same length flash over her mind. She shrugs, deliberately, and one of her hands comes up and rubs at one of her scars, almost like she doesn't know she's doing it. "I'm - getting there," she says instead. "Judith helps."  
  
"Kicker's better'n moonshine," Daryl says, and Beth smiles.   
  
"Definitely. She likes it here."   
  
"Do you?" Daryl thinks Beth would have liked it here. It's not like Hershel's place, but it's probably like her friends' houses, the kids she went to school with. Maybe a little fancier but probably the same type of people.   
  
Maybe Beth would have liked it, but he's not sure if she likes it now.  
  
Beth thinks about it. "I like - living with Maggie and Glenn. I like - having hot water, and electricity, and cooking family dinners. That's all - nice. Comfortable, I guess. But I guess I'm just - I'm not that comfortable with comfortable, anymore."  
  
Daryl nods. That makes sense. He wonders if he was ever comfortable with comfortable. Maybe that's why everything here feels so weird.   
  
"And I -" Beth tucks her hair behind her ear, then does it again. Her own nervous tick. "I guess it's just. Hard. To -" She makes a face like she's mad at herself and Daryl wants to tell her not to be. To tell her it is hard, all of it's hard, and to ask if she thinks it'll ever get any easier. But he doesn't say anything, because it's her turn to talk, and if she wants to say more, she should. "I guess I just wonder if I'll ever. Forget, I guess. About Grady."  
  
"Yeah," Daryl says. And maybe it sounds more understanding than it should, because she looks at him.   
  
"You never talk about it. What happened in between us getting separated and you finding Rick."  
  
Daryl shrugs. "Fell in with some people." Joe's arm constricts around his stomach suddenly. _I don't want to force you._ "Bad folks. They were lookin' for Rick. Then they found 'im."  
  
Beth's looking at him and he shrugs again, angrily. "What? Weren't that long. Couple days." Four. "They sucked but weren't no worse'n my dad." Mostly true. "Rick took care of 'em." And Rick had.  
  
"Okay," Beth says. "You don't - have to tell me." _And I don't have to tell you_ , Daryl hears from her, unwhispered, maybe just thought at him.  
  
"I ain't told Carol neither," he says quietly, and Beth scootches a little closer to him.   
  
"Why not?"  
  
"She's got her own shit," Daryl mumbles. "She don't need mine." He looks up at Beth. "An' you don't either."  
  
"Maybe having family means there's more people to carry your shit for you."  
  
Beth never cusses, so her saying shit makes him smile, just a little. She smiles back. 

"You tell Maggie?" he asks, and Beth's smile fades.   
  
"Not everything. Not yet. I - I don't know how to explain it right," Beth says, tucking her hair behind her ear again. "I - I don't want to make it sound worse than it is. Was. Worse than it was. It's not - nothing actually happened."  
  
She said that last time too. Nothing happened. He wasn't going to kill her. Daryl thinks the same nothing that happened to her probably happened to him. It was probably worse for her, because she was a girl and she was stuck in that hospital and hurt and stuff. But maybe - maybe she'd get it. If he talked about it.  
  
"Nothin' happened to me neither," Daryl says, and it's maybe the closest he's come yet to telling anybody what happened with Joe.   
  
Beth's eyes are searching him, like she's trying to understand if he meant that to be code or if he was just really fucking stupid, and he scoffs, because he's not stupid. Beth just nods, once.   
  
"I was so scared," Beth says, and there's something about the way she says it almost scares Daryl. Like she's been waiting to say it for weeks, like she couldn't forget about it or stop being scared until she said it out loud. Daryl doesn't touch people - he can remember the amount of times he's initiated contact with someone and count them on both hands with fingers left over, and almost all of them were Carol. But he finds himself sliding off the table and sitting next to Beth, putting one hand on her shoulder softly, tentatively, like she'll disappear if he spooks her.   
  
"Ain't there no more," he says roughly. "We're okay."  
  
That's when the door connecting the garage to the house slams open.   
  
Daryl jumps back and Beth does too - both of them are startled, and Daryl's vaguely proud of how quick Beth's knife is out, even as he's got his own in his hand.   
  
But it's Eric - Eric, brandishing a baseball bat, looking angry. When he sees it's Daryl and Beth, he visibly slumps in relief.   
  
"Oh thank goodness. You two, come inside, quick."  
  
"What's the matter?" Beth asks, as she and Daryl make their way into the house.  
  
Eric's face is grim. "We've got company."  
  
Somewhere nearby, loud enough to shake the house, loud enough to draw every walker from Alexandria to Georgia, a truck horn starts to blast.  
  
And doesn't stop.


	4. JSS

Aaron's shoving the sofa from the living room to the front door. He doesn't look up.   
  
"You lock the garage door?" he asks.   
  
"Yeah. Daryl was in there. And Beth."  
  
Aaron looks up, relief and worry warring on his face. "You two all right?"  
  
"We - I just been showin' her the bike," Daryl says. "What's happening?"  
  
"A group got in," Aaron says. He finishes sliding the sofa. "Can't tell how many. Saw two before - shit!" Aaron doesn't curse and it makes Daryl flinch, out of reflex. "I checked my rifle back into the armory after - stupid, I should have -"  
  
"That's policy," Eric says. "There's nothing you could have done -"

"Got my bow," Daryl says. It's slung across one shoulder and he's glad he grabbed it, gladder than anything in his life. "Got bolts, too." Not an unlimited supply, but ten, which is better than nothing. "Could get to the armory."  
  
Aaron looks at him and nods. "Not by yourself. You stay here," Aaron says to Eric. "Your ankle -"  
  
"Fuck my ankle," Eric says fiercely. "I'm not letting you go out there and -"  
  
"We don't know what we're dealing with," Aaron says. "Eric -"  
  
"We should go stay together," Beth says suddenly. She's got her knife in her hand and suddenly she's ransacking Eric and Aaron's kitchen, pulling out other stuff. The knife block, a thing of matches, a bottle of booze, some of the cloth napkins. "Safety in numbers. Here." She shoves one of the napkins into the bottle of alcohol, the fastest Molotov cocktail Daryl's ever seen, and shoves it into her belt. She makes another and hands it to Eric, who stares at it a second before putting it in his pocket and picking up the baseball bat. Beth hands him a knife, too, and holds one out to Aaron, who shakes his head.   
  
"I've got mine," he says. And he holds up a tiny handgun. "And six shots in this."   
  
Well. It's better than nothing.

"Ready?" Eric asks. He looks paler than usual, a little sweaty, but otherwise Daryl wouldn't know he was scared.   
  
"I love you," Aaron says to Eric, and suddenly they're kissing and Daryl doesn't know where to look. Beth is still raiding their kitchen for potential weapons - she's emptying any glass container, mason jars and nicely cleaned out beer bottles, anything she can find, suddenly become a one girl bomb squad. Daryl looks at that, at the pile of shit Beth's gathering, until Aaron and Eric pull apart.  
  
"I love you too," Eric says. "Let's go."  
  
"All right," Aaron turns to Daryl. "We should go out the back. Better cover. Ready?"  
  
Daryl checks his knife, readies his bow, a movement more familiar than breathing. Nods. Aaron has his knife too, and one flare gun. Eric braces himself near the door, bat out. Beth, her knife fisted in her hand, looks determined as she swings open the door.

They go. 

* * *

The backyard is mostly deserted, but Daryl can see Alexandria's wall being licked by fire and hear yelling from the street.   
  
Aaron swears. "Damnit. I told Deanna, I said, we've got blind spots, we should have -"  
  
"C'mon," Daryl says, because it doesn't matter how the intruders got in. It matters how the Alexandrians are gonna get them out.   
  
"There's something," Aaron says hurriedly as they scale the Selznick's fence, Beth's boots scrabbling over the wood until Daryl gets under her feet and boosts her. "On their foreheads. I think. I wasn't close enough, but I thought I saw -"  
  
Daryl just nods. They wait a moment before dropping into the Selznick's yard. One of them, a woman whose name Daryl never learned, is face down on a laundry basket, her blood dripping into the clean clothes.   
  
Eric looks sick but Daryl just keeps moving. Now is the tricky bit - they'll have to cut across the street and go through another backyard before they're close to the armory. Daryl hates Alexandria all of a sudden, useless yards and fences between him and where he needs to be.   
  
"Holly," Eric breathes next to him, and Daryl turns and sees a blonde woman staggering up the street, hands pressed to her stomach as a man with an ax follows her, teeth bared in a grin.   
  
"Shit," Aaron says again, but Daryl's already aiming.  
  
"Got 'im," Daryl says, and the man falls. Arrow sticking out of his eye. Aaron's looking like he doesn't understand what he's seeing. "C'mon!"  
  
They run out - Aaron and Eric go to Holly, Daryl to grab his bolt from the guy's eye, Beth hovering behind him, Molotov cocktail in hand. Aaron was right - there's something on the man's forehead. A W.   
  
Written in blood. 

Suddenly Rosita is there too and they've all got Holly cradled in there arms as Daryl takes point, running for the armory.   
  
"No," Aaron says, "The infirmary, we've got to -"  
  
They're at opposite ends of the street. For a moment, Daryl almost tells them to split up. But he sees Beth already turning towards the infirmary, and he turns and goes with her.   
  
"Move!" he says, and they do. 

They burst into the infirmary like a ball of chaos, all arms and legs and blood, everyone talking at once. Denise, who'd been sitting in the corner that time Pete'd given him a physical, is there looking frazzled but trying to be brave, yelling out instructions to everyone. 

Daryl doesn't look back at all. Not at Holly, her head lolling, the gut wound stinking, not at Eric or Rosita, not at Aaron or Beth or Tara. He looks at the street, bow raised, ready. Ready. 

"I need to help," Aaron says suddenly, and it cuts through all the noise, the fucking air horn, the yelled instructions, the screams from the street. "I need to try."  
  
Then Eric says "So do I. I love you."  
  
"I know."   
  
"Denise, I'm gonna have to go too," Rosita is saying, and Tara, Eugene babbling something in the background -

"Somebody's got to guard this place!"  
  
"You can handle it -"  
  
"I can't!"  
  
"I'll help." It's Beth. "I can - I helped at a hospital before. I don't know a lot, but -"

"I also believe my services would be best rendered -" Eugene.  
  
But the only word Daryl is listening for is "Come on!" And once he hears it, he's out the door.   
  
It's him, Aaron, Rosita. They move quick. With Rosita, it's almost second nature at this point. Rosita's got her gun, and Aaron has his out and he's moving like he knows what he's doing. Aaron knows Alexandria best, he's on point. They weave in between houses, ducking low under windows. Daryl's got the rear. Every so often he'll fire a bolt, watch one fall in the distance, but there's so many of them, who knows where they end.   
  
The air horn quiets and Daryl doesn't know how long it was going or how long they keep on when it's silent - checking bodies, killing who they find. They all have W's. The Alexandrians on the ground are all dead already - no one needs another run to the infirmary. It's too late for all of them.

At first the gunshots make Daryl nervous, but he realizes he hasn't seen a single W person with a gun. Which means probably, the guns are all on their side. 

Aaron takes out one, a gunshot wound through the guys throat, and Rosita finishes the kill quick, knife in and out. They keep moving.   
  
They pass some of the intruders already down - gunshot wounds to the head. "Someone must have gotten to the armory," Rosita says. "Or maybe -"  
  
Carol. Carol'd probably done it. Unless Rick had come back.  
  
"There," Aaron says. Some of them ransacking a house. Rosita gets one, Aaron nicks another, Daryl finishes him off, crossbow bolt jutting unnaturally from the side of his head.  
  
He sees Maggie, running, gun in hand. Morgan, walking down the street with his stick, closing the gate. Two legs, severed from their bodies, one wearing jeans, one foot in a bloody sneaker. Puddles line the ground, here and there. Abandoned weapons, which Daryl kicks into bushes, down storm drains. No reason to leave that shit around for someone else to pick up.

All he hears now is gunshots and yelling. Which sounds different than screaming, different from the truck horn. Which means probably, this should be over soon. 

And then, as quickly as it started, it ends. 

But after all that noise, the quiet doesn't sound good either.

* * *

It's not like any of them have a plan. Rosita sees Maggie in the distance and jogs off. Aaron is staring at the streets around him, like he can't believe this. Daryl figures he's seen this before - maybe not the actual action, but the aftermath. But maybe it's the first time it's happened to Aaron's home, instead of someone elses.   
  
It must feel different, Daryl guesses. He wouldn't know. It's only ever happened to his home. 

"I'm - gon' go check on Carol. Carl too. He had Judith, I dunno where -"  
  
"Of course," Aaron says. He's got his knife out. "Make sure - if there's any laying around that haven't, you know, been finished -"  
  
"I'll do it," Daryl says, almost gently, even though it's a stupid question.   
  
Aaron nods and sets off a different way, kneeling every so often near a body. Sometimes, the action is swift, decisive, a quick jab to the brain.   
  
Sometimes, it's slow, like a moment of prayer or mourning, and Daryl figures those must be the Alexandrians.

The house looks untouched when Daryl gets back to it. There's a body outside, but it's one of the W people, shot in the leg and the head. There isn't any other blood. Daryl takes the steps three at a time, has the presence of mind to yell as he goes in.   
  
"Carl? Carol? It's, uh. Daryl." He feels stupid yelling but he's glad when Carl appears cradling a semiautomatic to his chest.   
  
"Hey."  
  
"Hey."   
  
They look at each other a long moment, and Daryl almost jumps out of his skin as something starts to ring somewhere. For a moment it reminds Daryl of the truck horn, how it just kept going, and he spins around, trying to figure out what the ringing means, what's coming - 

"It's the kitchen timer," Carl says. "C'mon." Carl shoves something in his pocket - a piece of paper? - and Daryl follows him into the kitchen. "Carol must've been -" It smells good, like something cooking, warm and savory. Like coming home.   
  
It's a weird smell, with Daryl's hands covered in blood from stabbing people in the head, with crumpled bodies littering the street.   
  
Carl pulls whatever the hell it is out of the oven, closes the door. Turns it off.   
  
"Kicker okay?" Daryl asks.   
  
"Yeah. Slept through it," Carl says. "It over?"  
  
"Yeah."   
  
Carl nods.   
  
"Ron was here. He didn't come in, but. Did you - see him?"  
  
Daryl hadn't seen Ron. But he hadn't checked every dead person. "Naw," he says.   
  
"Enid was here too. She left."  
  
Daryl nods.   
  
"I don't know if she's - coming back?"  
  
Daryl just shrugs. Who the fuck knows where they go from here?

"Seen Carol?"   
  
Carl shook his head. "Not since she left, when it all started. She had a gun though, so. And her knife."  
  
"Yeah," Daryl said. They just look at each other for a second.   
  
"You do that guy out there?"   
  
Carl nods. Bites his lip. "I - he was chasing Ron," Carl explains, an almost desperate tone in his voice. "I had to."  
  
"Yeah, man," Daryl says. Thinks of the people he took down. At least three. Maybe more - they all blur together now, the ones he does in fights. Something about the adrenaline, maybe.   
  
Or maybe he just doesn't know how to remember.   
  
"Do you think my dad will be -" Carl struggles with something, frustration leaking into his voice. "I mean, I had to! I even shot him in the leg first, I didn't - but then he grabbed for my gun so I had to shoot him, I had to."  
  
Carl's voice is so deep now, it's hard to remember how it sounded back at the prison, after he shot that Woodbury kid. _He drew on us!  
  
_ "He'll get it, man," Daryl says. "You had to protect Asskicker. Weren't no choice at all."  
  
Something in Carl relaxes at that. "Yeah. I had to." 

That's when Carol comes in.   
  
She's wearing stolen clothes that smell like sweat and blood and something worse, almost like decay, and she's got blood splattered all over her face, her hands, but none of that stops Daryl who walks straight up to her. He almost hugs her, but there's something about her movement, the stiffness, the way her eyes focus, that makes him scared to. Not scared, not - but nervous that it wouldn't mean what he wanted it to. So he hangs back at the last second, awkward, hands shoved in pockets.   
  
He wonders if this is what people feel towards him all the time, wanting to touch, to comfort, and knowing it'll just make things worse.   
  
"You all right?" Daryl asks, and then Carol's eyes are focusing again, looking at him. Her hands come up towards his face, move his hair out of his eyes, and he doesn't flinch even though they're caked in flaking blood.   
  
"Judith?" Carol asks.   
  
"She's fine," Carl says. "Me and Enid watched her. Nobody got in."  
  
Carol nods.   
  
"Took your casserole out," Carl adds. Carol blinks at him like she doesn't even remember what a casserole is.   
  
"Let it cool," Carol says. "Then put it away. We'll save it for dinner. With the others."  
  
That's when Daryl remembers how many people are outside the walls.   
  
And how long that horn blast went.

* * *

"Carol," Daryl says. It's later. Most of the afternoon has been spent gathering the dead, sorting them into piles, ours and theirs. Work he's done a thousand times. Carol disappears upstairs and reappears, blood washed away, in a blue shirt and pants and boots that almost look like something she'd wear on the road. She's starting down the steps, heading towards the wall, and Daryl catches up with her.   
  
"Yeah, pookie?"  
  
"You - you're a'right, right?" Daryl asks, and feels dumb the second he says it.   
  
Carol looks at him, brushes his bangs out of his eyes - maybe he should get a haircut, just so people stop having to physically move his hair to see his face. But the only person who does it is Carol, so he doesn't mind that much.   
  
"I'm fine," Carol says, and he can't tell if she's trying to convince Daryl or herself. "I'm going to be fine."

Daryl nods a moment, unsure. He opens his mouth to speak again, but that's when he hears it.

"The gate! Open the gate!"  
  
That's Rick's voice, Daryl knows, but that's not what makes him start sprinting towards the gate, Carol hot on his heels.   
  
No, it's the sound behind him, like the ocean going up and down, a sea of groaning and shuffling.   
  
A wave of walkers.   
  
And it's going to break right against their walls.


	5. Now and Then

It's not as bad as Daryl thought.   
  
Sure, Daryl thought there'd be walkers penning them in twenty deep, no way out, but that's not exactly what's happening.   
  
They're five deep. And that's something. It's better than twenty, Daryl guesses.  
  
But 'not as bad' still isn't all that good, and so Daryl is chewing his thumb as Rick tries to convince the Alexandrians not to be stupid and get them all killed. 

Aaron tells them that this is all his fault. That the people who came - Wolves, someone says - followed them there, found the pictures that made the place a target. Daryl's tight and tense as Aaron talks, waiting for the others to turn on him, on Daryl - because Daryl hadn't grabbed the bag either, Daryl had been right there beside Aaron and they already hate Daryl so it'd be easy for them to turn on him - 

But they don't. 

Not yet.

These people are weak, Daryl thinks as he watches them freak out over rationing and the low echoing groans and thuds that they can hear over the wall. Some lady is yelling at Olivia that she can't make two meals with what she's been given, so they're weak and they're shitty at planning. She's holding what would have been a feast in canned goods to Rick and everyone when they were on the road.   
  
When Daryl'd been a kid, his dad on a bender and Merle in juvie, still too little to be good enough to catch his own food, it'd have been a miracle.  
  
They're weak and they're losing their shit over nothing because sixty eight hours later, Glenn and Sasha and Abraham are back, in vehicles, and the herd gets drawn away and everyone settles down to normal.   
  
But Daryl's seen how quick these people break, and it doesn't make him feel good. 

* * *

With the walkers gone, with everyone back (not everyone, Daryl notices guiltily, seeing the lack of Carter, the thinned ranks of the Alexandrians, but everyone he cares about) the people seem to be torn between wanting everything to get back to normal and wanting to run Rick out on a rail over their missing, their dead, their broken windows and their bloody streets. Enough people are grateful that Alexandria is still standing that Rick's still in charge, with Deanna looking fragile and small by his side.  
  
"It's a moving season," Rick says grimly that evening over dinner. They're all crammed into the kitchen in Rick's house - Maggie and Glenn are practically in each other's laps, but that might not be a space thing. "Like when we left the farm. Lot of different herds around. We got rid of this one all right, but not sure what'll happen if too many of them converge."  
  
"You think the walls won't hold?" Carol asks. She's sitting in front of Daryl, no longer wearing her stupid Alexandria sweater. Daryl, who is perched on a windowsill, is chewing on his thumb as he listens to her. Something's been off since the Wolves came, something Daryl doesn't know how to ask about, and Carol isn't talking. It makes his stomach twist.   
  
"We'll reinforce them," Rick says. "They're strong already, with reinforcements -" He rubs at his eyes. "But those herds are unpredictable. Who knows."  
  
Nobody knows. And it makes the atmosphere in the kitchen quiet and tense, Glenn wrapping an arm around Maggie's waist, Eugene swallowing hard, Rosita looking at Abraham for something he doesn't give her.   
  
Carol, unblinking. 

* * *

The next day, Aaron turns up on the porch early, in his hiking boots and his outside jacket. There are bags under his eyes, like he hasn't slept well, but he smiles at Daryl.   
  
"You feeling up to a trip out?"  
  
"Yeah," Daryl says, without even thinking. Aaron's smile gets a little wider, more natural. 

The supplies are running low - not what Daryl would call low, but what Alexandria would. And if Rick's right about the herds, then this is probably a good time to go out - yesterdays herd drawn off, tomorrow's herd somewhere else. If they're going to get surrounded again, they should have as big a store as possible.   
  
Glenn is going out too - him and Maggie are whispering in a corner, arguing about something. Tara offers to go with him, but he ends up taking Sasha and Abraham instead. Heath and Annie make up a third teams.   
  
They all gather at the gates, looking at a map as Heath frowns and crosses places off.   
  
"We normally don't go east," he says finally. "There's some stuff over there that's untouched over the Potomac. Mostly smaller places, mom and pop grocery stores, you know. We haven't looked in a while - they might be empty by now - but might be worth a try. It's the only stuff within a day's drive that we haven't totally cleared."  
  
Daryl's prepared to leave the bike - bike's and supply runs don't mix, he knows that - but to his surprise, Glenn tells him to take it. "We'll split up once we cross the bridge," Glenn says seriously. "You go first, see whether the herds have made it across the river or not. Let us know what we're heading into."  
  
He doesn't have to ask Daryl twice. 

Riding scout makes him feel powerful and sure for the first time since the Wolves broke in - the wind tugs and his clothes and the few walkers he sees he weaves in between, easy. He goes pretty far ahead - probably farther than Glenn meant him to - and he meets the others back at the bridge, doesn't even take his helmet off. Just gives them a thumbs up.   
  
It's as clear as they could hope for.   
  
He and Aaron peel off from the others and make their way up route 4. It's a cool day, crisp, autumnal almost, and Daryl wonders what month it is. Maybe it's the weather, that makes the walkers herd up. Maybe they can tell winter is coming. He's lost track of everything.   
  
They pull up in front of a Safeway. It's been picked over, clearly, but Daryl can still see stuff on the shelves inside. He looks at Aaron.  
  
"Yeah?" he asks, and Aaron looks back and smiles.   
  
"Yeah. Why not."   
  
Clearly the looters that came before them had come early in the crisis - things are missing that they'd never take now, the liquor section empty, the candy aisle clear, but surprisingly, some canned goods left. All weird shit like cream of celery soup or tinned oysters, but whoever'd been here before had come in a time when people could be picky. They get a decent amount of canned goods. The pharmacy section is also picked clear, but only of cough syrup, allergy stuff, decongestants. There's aspirin and bandaids there, but no rubbing alcohol. It makes Daryl uneasy. Some tweakers came through here and got enough supplies to make a whole lot of meth, which means Daryl doesn't want to run into them.   
  
"Not bad," Aaron says as they load up the truck. He frowns at it though and looks consideringly at the room left over. "We could fit more, but -"  
  
"Could try them food places," Daryl says. They're in a strip mall - he can see a Pizza Hut down one way, an IHOP, a Taco Bell. Whatever nonperishables might be left will be few and far between, but there would probably be something - those places weren't worth hitting up unless you were desperate. Too little reward, too big a hassle - the nonperishables had all rotted into sludge by now, and it'd be gross as shit to wade through that. But that meant that other people might have passed it up. "Better'n nothin'."  
  
"Smart," Aaron says, and Daryl feels the tips of his ears turn red. He's still surprised when people say nice shit about him like that. He never knows how to respond.   
  
The parking lot is quiet as they pick their way through.   
  
"How're you doing?" Aaron asks as they walk. The question almost makes Daryl jump.   
  
"Fine," Daryl says automatically. He looks at Aaron - the tired smudges under his eyes, the slightly forced look of his smile. "Um - how 'bout you?" he mumbles awkwardly, and scowls at the ground. Stupid. Sounds like a fucking - 

"I'm all right," Aaron says. A moment of quiet. "I - I brought some of those people in," Aaron adds, his voice tight with regret, and it takes Daryl a moment to realize he's not talking about the Wolves.   
  
He's talking about the Alexandrians. The dead ones.   
  
Daryl shrugs uncomfortably. "Sucks," he says, and Aaron laughs - the sound carrying weirdly long in the empty parking lot.   
  
"You're right," Aaron says, his voice bitter. "It sucks."  
  
"Ain't - heard what you said, at the gate?" Daryl says after a moment. They're working their way from the farthest restaurant in, and it's coming up fast. "Ain't your - they coulda found it anyway. Without them pictures." He thinks of Shirewilt, Rick's voice on the walkie. _It's gone._ "We - seen other places they done. Not -" he fumbles, as Aaron looks at him - does Aaron think they should have warned Alexandria better? That they should have been more prepared? "We din't know that when we saw 'em, but now -"  
  
"I get you," Aaron says softly, and something in Daryl eases. "I - I just wonder if I hadn't brought them in - maybe they would be -"  
  
Daryl thinks of the Alexandrians, of their softness, their complaining. "Naw," Daryl says. "Woulda been somethin' else, probably."   
  
Aaron gives a small nod. "Maybe," Aaron says, but it doesn't sound like he's agreeing.   
  
Daryl lets it go. Ain't worth a fight outside. Plus, if Aaron doesn't believe him, pushing it isn't going to make him any more likely to get it. 

The Checkers is a bust - picked over and full of the smell of long rotted meat. The Taco Bell is a little better - there's some cans of beans, some truly bizarre processed cheese, an enormous thing of salsa, still sealed.   
  
The Pizza Hut has cans and cans of pizza sauce, which makes Aaron smile again. "Next you know, Mrs. Neudermeyer'll want a woodfired pizza oven," he starts, but the smile fades. Mrs. Neudermeyer's one of the names painted on the wall, a fresh mound in the graveyard. 

Some people must have camped out in the IHOP for a while. No food left, but someone's strung up clothes lines to make little rooms. Painted on one wall is an enormous pyramid with an eye on top. There's blood splashed in a path to the restroom, and when Daryl peeks in he can see the bodies, laid out neatly, all shot in the head.   
  
No use looking through after that.   
  
The haul is small but respectable. Aaron looks at it, then at Daryl. "What do you think? Good enough?"  
  
Daryl nods. "Yeah," he says. "Best we coulda done."  
  
It's true.

* * *

They're not meant to wait for the others. Better to get the supplies behind the walls as quickly as possible. Aaron radios Glenn, tells him they're heading back, they get a crackly "Roger, we will soon." From Abraham and Sasha, they get a "Heard!" and nothing else. So Aaron gives him the walkie, makes Daryl clip it to his jacket.   
  
"Not out of sight, this time," Aaron says, his tone vaguely scoldy, and Daryl rolls his eyes.   
  
"Whatever."  
  
Daryl doesn't need to go far ahead to feel free. He wishes he could take off the helmet, feel the wind in his hair, but Aaron'd probably get all pissy about that too, so he leaves it on. It doesn't matter, as long as he can hear the bike under him, feel the rough rumble of the road vibrating under his hands.   
  
So maybe it's his fault it happens. Maybe Daryl wasn't paying good enough attention. Maybe if he'd been more vigilant, he'd have seen it coming. But maybe not. 

The bullets are coming from one side of the road, behind trees, and Daryl's flinching down before he can even see where they're coming from, getting as low and close to the bike as he can possibly get. Something nicks the top of his helmet, a ripping noise that reverberates through his ears, makes his jaw ache. He puts on as much speed as he can, hears the bullets behind him, doesn't dare to look back and see where Aaron is, doesn't dare to - 

Something hits too close to Daryl and before he knows it he's skidding off the road, through the trees, barely keeping hold as the bike bumps along, over dirt and rough tree roots and something burned and crumbly.   
  
But he's never ridden a motorcycle in a fucking forest before so he's not shocked when he hits something and he's off, unseated, skidding along the hard grounds until he lands against something - a tree stump? A rock? It doesn't matter what because whatever it is fucking hurts, slamming into his side so hard the wind gets knocked out of him.   
  
And that's all he knows for a little while.

* * *

The first thing Daryl sees when he comes to is the reflection of his helmeted head. His brain hurts, because it almost looks like the reflection of his head is being reflected in the visor of some other helmet but how could that be happening unless -

The head in the helmet gives a weak twitch, a breathless groan, and Daryl is scrambling back so fast that he slams into the tree stump again and sees stars until he realizes whatever the fuck it is (a walker, it's gotta be, but he hasn't seen a walker like this since Atlanta) can't get him. 

Fuck. He pulls the helmet off and blinks, hard. Okay, Aaron had been right. Helmets were good. This one is battered to shit - scrapes all down one side, a divot in the top that Daryl's fingers run over and over until he understands what he's feeling.   
  
Bullet hole. A graze. Fucking lucky. 

Helmets aren't for pussies. He gets it. He's on board.   
  
Daryl's back and side are pounding from the impact and his head is spinning but he doesn't feel concussed or whatever, and even though his palms and knees are all scraped up, he's not bleeding much. His shirt sleeve is shredded from sliding along the rough, uneven ground. He squints at it, at his sleeves, smudged from whatever the fuck it is. Charcoal?   
  
He can't hear shooting anymore. Or cars.   
  
He can't hear anything except quiet.   
  
The walkie is still clipped to his shirt. Daryl fumbles at it with shaking fingers. "Aaron?" he says into it, cursing himself in his head - he sounds like a fucking baby, like a little kid, like - "Glenn? Sasha? Abraham?" He tries to remember the names of the Alexandrians who went, can't. "Um - Alexandria?" He's too far away for that. 

It's still quiet. Even quieter, maybe, because now he can hear himself breath - hear his breath coming faster as he tries more names and gets no response.

Fuck.   
  
He shoves the radio onto his belt. His hands are shaking, and he clenches and unclenches them, notices suddenly that maybe he's bleeding worse than he thought - there's something dripping down his arm. Weirdly, the sight of the blood calms him down. He knows how to handle that. He's got to tie it up, put pressure on it. Otherwise he'll leave a trail a mile wide for walkers or whoever was shooting at him, and that ain't happening. His breathing is slowing down as he peels off his jacket, wincing - he wishes he had Merle's leather jacket, or his vest, something that wouldn't have shredded like paper. He rips the better of the two sleeves off, turns it inside out in the vague hope that the inside is cleaner, less likely to get him infected. He's wrapping it as tight as he can around the jagged cuts on his elbow - _not too tight,_ Hershel's voice says in his head, _don't want to cut off the circulation, that'll just bring a whole mess of other troubles._ He loosens it, a little, tests the bandage out. It'll do. At least he won't be leaving a dotted line saying HERE I AM, COME GET ME to whatever looks his way.   
  
He hears the snap of twigs and wonders if it's already too late.  
  
The bow is still snug on the back of the bike, and he grabs it with his good arm - not that the other one is so debilitated, the pain just a dull thump that Daryl can ignore for the moment. But he braces the bow against his shoulder, shakes out his arm, pulls some branches over the bike to hide it.   
  
Then he goes hunting.

* * *

It takes Daryl about two seconds to find what made the snapping noise, and he's almost disappointed that it's probably not the people who were shooting at them from the road.   
  
Then he's even more disappointed because it's girls, two girls with no weapons, dirty, their hands up, and he's going to have to help them and that's a complication he doesn't need with all the other shit that just happened.   
  
"You found us, kay?" the older one says. She sounds fierce but like she's pretending. The other one, a step behind her, doesn't look that much older than Daryl. Maybe Beth's age.   
  
"We earned what we took," the older one says, and the younger one puts a hand on her back, gently.   
  
"Sherry, wait, I don't think he's -"  
  
But then there's someone behind him, stupid, stupid, and he can't get his bow up in time before something slams into his head and the world goes dark again. 

He should have kept that helmet on.

* * *

When he's up again, it's night, and that makes his throat feel too tight. How long has he been out here? What's happened to Aaron? To Sasha and Abraham, to Glenn?  
  
Maybe these were the people that had been shooting at them.   
  
" - shouldn't have hit him so hard," one of the girls is saying. There's a fire, but Daryl can't see good enough to tell the two apart. "He looks like a kid, he -"  
  
"You see that bow? He's not a kid," a man says. Probably the one who'd hit him. "Could be a new recruit. From one of the outposts. You know guys like that, they've got twice as much to prove. Remember when Arat -"  
  
His hands are tied together. In the front, at least, that's something. His elbow is throbbing where he bandaged and he tries to move careful, see how much give the ropes have. Not much.  
  
"Are you sure?" the other girl says. "I - what if he's not with them? Maybe he could help us, maybe he knows a place -"  
  
"Nobody can help us, Tina," the man says. "We've got to help ourselves."  
  
The fire is crackling too loud - or maybe it's his ears ringing. Let this fuck get the jump on him, Daryl deserves this, he -  
  
He hopes Aaron made it back to Alexandria. Hopes the others did too. Fuck. His head hurts.   
  
" - know how to use one of these?" One of the girls is holding his bow and he wants to snarl, tell her to get her fucking hands off, wants to - but his head is swirling around and the noise from the fire suddenly feels so loud he can't think, he can't -  
  
"Yeah. Never really liked using them to hunt, but -"  
  
Daryl wants to spit at the guy. Fucking pussy.   
  
"- get Patty and we're gone. This is the last day -"  
  
Daryl's fading out again and he struggles not to. He has to stay awake, because maybe they'll say something important, maybe they'll fall asleep and he'll be able to get the ropes off and get to the bike and then he'll - 

But he can't hold on. The darkness comes again and he can't stop it, can't keep his eyes from closing.   
  
_This is the last day._   
  
Not if Daryl has anything to say about it. 

* * *

Daryl wakes up to the dim gray of the very early morning and to a man way too close to him. He's flinching back, trying to bring up his hands but they're thick, clumsy - oh. The rope. The man is crouched in front of him, the girls standing behind. The younger one, with the short hair, looks sorry. The other one just looks desperate.   
  
"Get up," the guy says, and Daryl wants to laugh. How's he meant to do that, his hands all tied and the guy so close to him? His best attempt at getting up would probably headbutt the guy. Which Daryl considers for a second - but the girls are still there, and his hands are still tied, and he's never been able to knock anyone out with a headbutt anyway.   
  
"Hey! I said get up!" The guy hits the tree near Daryl's head and he flinches out of reflex. Which makes him even more pissed. He's not scared of this asshole, with his stupid fucking gun, this fucker that has to use two girls for bait and sneak up on a kid like some bitch -  
  
"D," the older girl says. Maybe he shouldn't call her a girl. She's closer to a woman, Daryl guesses. "Don't."  
  
The guy - D? - has his hand on his gun like he wants to cock it and put it between Daryl's eyes, but he just scowls and pushes back. Grabs at one of Daryl's arms - the hurt one, of course, because why wouldn't he. Which makes Daryl hiss and try to jerk away, but the guys hand is firm around his arm as he hauls Daryl to his feet.   
  
Daryl's glad the tree is at his back because the world spins crazily for a second as he rises. He sags against the tree, the only thing keeping him up, as the man shakes Daryl by the arm.   
  
"Here's the deal," the man says. "You don't say shit and I don't kill you."  
  
Fine by Daryl. Words always fuck him up anyway.   
  
"Dwight," the older one says again, disapproving. She looks at him. "We're not going to kill you. We're -"  
  
"They might not want to, but I will," Dwight says - yeah, fucking Dwight, he looks like a Dwight, weaselly with shifty eyes. "Which outpost are you with?"  
  
Daryl's not sure what that means, so he stays quiet. Dwight shakes his arm again. "Hey! I asked you -"  
  
"Maybe he can't talk," the younger girl says. "He hasn't said anything, maybe -"  
  
"Also you just told him not to say shit," the older woman says. "So why did you tell him that and then ask him a question?"  
  
Dwight looks frustrated and Daryl looks at the older woman. There's a ghost of a smile on her face, but it fades quick. She reaches down and hauls up an enormous green army bag. Daryl tries to figure out what's in it. Guns? It doesn't seem heavy enough. Maybe -  
  
"Let's move," Dwight says, and he's shoving Daryl away from the tree. "Follow them."  
  
And Daryl does.  
  
The younger girl shoots him a smile over her shoulder - tentative, trying to be nice, maybe - but Daryl doesn't smile back. Fuck her. Fuck her and her friend and fuck Dwight, fuck all of them. He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground, trying not to trip but also looking for anything he could slice the rope on his hands with. A sharp rock, or maybe even a tree root, if he had enough time, if -   
  
"Drink this," Daryl hears, and he swallows reflexively even though he knows no one is talking to him. 

"We should save it -"  
  
"You've got to stay hydrated. It all works together."  
  
"Yeah," the younger girl says. "It does."  
  
Daryl tries not to watch as she drinks. Fixes his eyes to the ground again.   
  
He doesn't see anything useful. But he sees a fuckton of dead, burnt bodies. 

"Have it," the older woman says, and this time Daryl's so sure she isn't talking to him that he flinches again when Dwight shoves something close to his face.   
  
It's the last of the water. A drop splashes out onto his cheek.   
  
"We don't need you falling down," Dwight snarls, and Daryl holds back his twitch as he shoves the water at him again. "Drink."  
  
For a moment Daryl's afraid Dwight's going to pour it down his throat, but he just shoves it in Daryl's hand. The bottle is lukewarm. Daryl looks at the younger girl. She just drank from it, and she seems okay.   
  
He drinks it fast, before they can change their mind.   
  
"They find us, maybe we give you to them," Dwight says, and Daryl wonders who. Alexandria? Maybe they're the people Aaron had to exile. But then why would they ask what outpost he was with? Alexandrians didn't cross the river, normally.   
  
It's not Alexandria. It's somewhere else. Somewhere they're running from. Somewhere bad. And they want to barter Daryl to them.   
  
"Maybe they let us call it even. You see, we're reasonable people." The older woman is nodding behind Dwight like any of this makes sense. "Everyone's got their code. You feel you gotta kneel, that's fair enough." Daryl hasn't kneeled to anybody in his life. "We don't." The bottle, empty and useless, is snatched out of his hands, and Daryl scowls. Yeah, it was a fucking plastic bottle, but it was something. It could have been useful. But they've got it now. "Let's go."  
  
And off they walk again, Dwight's hand gripping the collar of his shirt in a way that makes Daryl want to snarl and spit, want to fight. And he will fight. He will.   
  
He just needs the right time. 

* * *

Dwight lets go of his shirt after a while, and a while after that the younger girl says, in a small, wondering voice, "I can't believe we're back."  
  
"It's not home anymore," the other woman says, and Daryl squints. Was this burnt out overgrowth ever a home? "But it's better than where we were!"  
  
Where they were must have fucking sucked. It makes the hair on the back of Daryl's neck prickle. Because if they run into whoever it is Dwight's people are hiding from and he trades Daryl to them -

"This is a pitstop," Dwight says. His hand attaches itself to the back of Daryl's shirt again, and Daryl can't still his twitch. "We pick up Patty, nothing more than that."   
  
"How'd you do it?" the younger girl asks.   
  
"You saw where we left the truck?" Dwight says.   
  
"Mhm," the girl says, almost dreamily. What the fuck kind of person can walk through all this with a hostage behind her and sound like that?  
  
"We opened the valve and drove all the way in from Farmview Road," Dwight says. It takes a couple more sentences until Daryl figures out what Dwight's talking about. "And then. boom! Knocked 'em on their asses and I took an axe to each one."  
  
He's talking about the forest. The charred bodies scattered around. Dwight had done that, with a match and fuel and luck. Daryl sees something move on the forest floor, a few feet away from them, but says nothing. If Dwight had really taken an axe to everyone, he'd done a shitty job. 

"Then we just watched it go up," the older woman says. "No more moans, no more wailing. Just the fire, just burning them all away."

"You did all this?" Dwight's hand tightens in the back of Daryl's shirt and he bites his lip. Fuck. Not supposed to talk.   
  
"It was right at the beginning," the older woman says.   
  
Yeah. The beginning. He remembers the quarry, the streaks of smoke curling up from Atlanta in the distance. Sophia and Carl huddled into their mamas, Shane leading the way. His dad, watching it all happen.   
  
"Thought that's what everyone was doing," Dwight says, his hand hot against Daryl's back, and Daryl realizes he missed something. "Fighting it? That we'd all win together?"  
  
Ain't no way everybody can win. Someones always gotta lose.   
  
"We were stupid," Dwight says, releasing Daryl, walking ahead, and Daryl realizes that Dwight knows that now too. 

"Y'all don't think you're bein' stupid right now?" Daryl asks. The water didn't help him much - his throat is sore and raspy, and the others all stop and stare at him. Dwight looks pissed, hand goes for his gun.   
  
"You saying I should kill you?"  
  
"Dwight, don't -" the younger girl says. "He's -"  
  
"I mean it, are you going to try and pull something on us?" 

"Dwight," the other woman says. "Calm down -"  
  
"Are we just being thick here by not removing all doubt?" The gun is out, aimed at Daryl's head, and he stills. Eyes tracking the gun. He wonders if he's going crosseyed, if the last thing anyone sees of him is going to be him making a stupid ass face. "Right now, by me not pulling this trigger, is that a mistake?"  
  
It is, because if he doesn't kill Daryl, Daryl's going to have to kill him. But Daryl says nothing. Talking. Fuck.   
  
"I really want to know," Dwight says, and he almost sounds genuine. "You made the choice to kill for someone else, to have them own you for a roof over your head and three squares, so maybe I'm not considering all aspects here."  
  
Daryl's ninety nine percent sure that Dwight thinks he's from somewhere else, but something in what he's saying catches on him, sharp. He'd killed for someone else, yeah. For Rick, for Carol, for all of them. And it wasn't for a roof or food or anything, it was for something else, something Daryl doesn't know quite how to name, something the others call family, blood, but he's not sure what to call it. But is he any better than these fucks, stumbling around in the woods, doing their own damage?  
  
He's not. He knows that. That's why, when he has to kill them, it'll fuck him up. Probably.   
  
It has before. 

"You tell me - am I being stupid?" Dwight looks human and wrecked, the gun in his hand shaking.   
  
"Dwight!" the other woman yells. "He's a kid, he's -"  
  
"Naw," Daryl says finally, his eyes still fixed on the gun. "I - I ain't who you think," he says, and the woman steps forward.   
  
"What do you mean? Dwight, put the damn gun -"  
  
"Don't listen to him," Dwight hisses. "Who else could he be?"  
  
"Ain't -" Daryl says, but Dwight's hand is fisted in his shirt again and Daryl stops talking.   
  
"We should never have trusted them," Dwight hisses in his ear. "You shouldn't have either. But it's too late for that." Dwight gives him a shove and Daryl stumbles, almost goes face first into the ground. The younger girl catches him and Daryl pulls away from her as soon as he can, tries to straighten up.   
  
"Keep going," Dwight says.   
  
And they do. 

  
  



	6. Always Accountable

"Hey."  
  
They've stopped. The longer haired woman and Dwight are off a bit, having a whispered conversation - over whether or not to kill Daryl, he guesses. Dwight shoved him against a tree, told him not to move. "Watch him, Tina."   
  
Tina - the shorter haired the girl, the young one - is standing next to him, too close. He pulls back, eyes darting towards Dwight - he'll be pissed if Daryl talks to the girl, he's sure.   
  
"Dwight's not going to - he's just scared. He's just trying to make sure you do what he says."  
  
Daryl grunts, once.   
  
"Sherry wouldn't let him, anyway. Even if he wanted to. And he doesn't. He just - wants us to get away."  
  
The twine is digging into his hands. Tina doesn't even have a knife at her belt. Who the fuck are these people? Running around the woods with nothing, with no clue -  
"Are you - hungry? We don't have much, but -" Tina looks wobbly, like if they did have any food she should be the one eating it.  
  
"Naw," Daryl says. "M'fine." It's been less than a day since he ate something. He'll live, until he gets back to Alexandria.   
  
If he gets back.   
  
"Dwight would take you with us. I bet. I mean, Sherry could convince him to, if you wanted to. If you - needed to get away." Tina chews at her lip, darts a look over her shoulder. "If you asked -"  
  
"Ain't gotta go anywhere," Daryl spits.   
  
"He'll turn on you," Tina says suddenly. "If you're from one of the outposts maybe you haven't seen enough of him yet, seen what he can do, but at Sanctuary we -" She shivers, once, totally involuntary. "You get behind on points, Negan'll -"  
  
"Tina!" The woman, Sherry, is coming back over, Dwight behind her with a face like a stormcloud. Sherry grabs Tina's shoulder. "I told you not to -"  
  
"I wasn't - I just said, if he wanted to leave, we'd -"  
  
Dwight is yanking Daryl up at that and Daryl brings his bound hands up to protect his face, total reflex. Which is good because Dwight looks pissed.   
  
"You made your bed," Dwight says, gripping Daryl's arm tight. "You chose to kneel. That's your choice."  
  
"I ain't -" Daryl starts, and he's not sure what he's going to say - that he didn't? That he doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about? That he doesn't know or care who the fuck Negan is, doesn't give a shit for whatever trouble there is on this side of the river, he just wants to find his people and get back home -

But he doesn't say any of it before Dwight yanks him by the shirt again and marches him away from the women. Daryl'd be scared if he didn't hear the girls behind him, their feet lighter but still noticeable.   
  
" - can't trust anything he says, he could -"  
  
"- didn't tell him anything, just - he looks like he's younger than me, maybe he just got caught in something he -"

"I get it Teeny, but -"

"He didn't say anything and I didn't tell him anything - we'll let him go, right? When we find Patty, we'll -"  
  
"Fuck," Dwight says suddenly from behind him, and Daryl feels the hold release on his shirt. They've hit the edge of the woods, a chainlink fence. Inside the fence, walkers roam, but not that many. He can't tell why Dwight sounds so broken up all of a sudden. The women go forward too. Sherry drops a bag as the three of them crowd up to the fence, looking like the world just ended again.   
  
"Patty," he hears one of them say, and he scowls. He doesn't give a fuck for whoever they're looking for. He just cares that now's a moment he could get loose.   
  
"She could be -"  
  
"Nah. She's gone."  
  
"Then we make another plan, we -"  
  
"You guys didn't have to do this for me," Tina says. Her voice is wavery and weak but somehow Daryl hears it better than all the others.   
  
The bag is right there. He shifts forward, slightly, quiet feet.   
  
"It was the right thing," Sherry says. "For all of us."  
  
"Even if just you guys went back now -"  
  
But then Tina is falling and Daryl doesn't let himself hesitate. He's got the bag and he's off into the woods before he even hears the shots.   
  
Dwight must almost empty his gun firing at him. Stupid, Daryl thinks, ducking behind a tree, ripping at the rope with his hands, scrambling through the bag for his bow just quick enough to spear a mossy walker through the forehead. Stupid of them, stupid to waste the ammo, stupid Tina falling down like some stupid - 

INSULIN, the cooler inside the bag says. MUST BE KEPT COLD.

Fuck. 

* * *

Now Daryl's the stupid one, because he's going back. He's got his knives back in their sheathes, his bow against his shoulder, and somehow the three of them look surprised to see him, even though he didn't hide his footsteps.   
  
"Gimme the gun," Daryl says, hand out. Tina looks wrung out, two shades paler under the dirt, and Sherry looks scared, though Daryl's not sure if it's because he's stealing their gun or because of the way Tina is sagging against her. Dwight's jaw clenches but he holds the gun out grudgingly. Daryl takes it - four shots left, wasteful fuck - and tucks it into his waistband.  
  
It's with an almost perverse pleasure that Daryl throws the bag at Dwight's head.   
  
Sherry snatches it out of the air before it can hit him, though, and she's digging through it, through the cooler while Dwight just stares at him, open mouthed.   
  
"S'all there," Daryl mumbles. He backs up a couple of steps as Sherry looks up at him.   
  
"You should come with us," she says. "You may think it's not bad now, but -"  
  
"Tol' you a'ready, ain't -" Daryl starts, but then there's a noise like a truck grinding over trees, and Daryl's hiding before he figures out that maybe it's Aaron or Glenn or someone from Alexandria, someone looking for him. He should come out and - 

But it's not them. So Daryl hides more, pulls as far behind the trees as he can. Sherry and Tina and Dwight, stupid fucks, haven't moved. Maybe they can't, with Tina all floppy and sweaty like that. Shit.   
  
"Let's end this," someone yells. From his hiding spot all Daryl can see is boots, jeans. But it doesn't sound like anybody from Alexandria.   
  
"We earned what we took!"  
  
Sherry sounds scared and Daryl wonders why she starts everything off with that line. Does she actually think that'll convince anybody? If they thought she stole it, why would her saying she'd earned it change any minds? If they ran a fucking truck through the forest trying to get at them, what does earning have to do with anything?  
  
The guy is yelling about payment now, they're gonna pay, and a shiver goes down Daryl's spine. If they're going to make Dwight and Sherry and Tina pay, who knows what they'll do to him if they catch him creeping.   
  
Dwight and Tina and Sherry start going off - the wrong way, Daryl can tell, can see the flashes behind the trees. "Hey," he hisses, and he shouldn't do this. This is Daryl's chance to get away clean. They'll go off and chase the others in the opposite way and Daryl will get back to the bike, ride out to the road and -  
  
"C'mon, this way," he says, and suddenly he's leading them through the trees, all of them stumbling and bumping against each other, the revving of the truck engine behind them.   
  
Carol and Rick and them are rubbing off on him. He's going soft. 

* * *

One of the guys gets a chunk taken out of him and the other guys peel out, and then Daryl's left with three people staring at him alone in the middle of the forest.   
  
Daryl scowls. He gave Dwight back the gun and Sherry's stuck Tina full of medicine so what've they got to be looking at him for?  
  
"We thought you were with them," Dwight says, and Daryl spits.   
  
"Fuckin' told you," he mumbles. "Ain't."  
  
Daryl starts to back away then. They're square - fucking more than square, with Daryl giving them the insulin and saving their hides and even giving Dwight his goddamn gun back. No reason for them to keep looking at him now.   
  
"We hit you over the head, tie you up, threaten to kill you," Dwight says, and Daryl stiffens at each thing listed. "Why did you come back?"  
  
Daryl shrugs. "She's sick, ain't she?" he says, jerking his chin at Tina, who still looks pale but is sitting up under her own power now. "She din't do nothin' to me." Daryl gives Dwight a look and edges further away. "Ain't want no trouble," he says when Dwight stands up. He raises his bow, just to make sure the guy doesn't try anything. "M'just gonna get outta here. Find my own people." He takes another step back.   
  
_We want to find people who still are people,_ Aaron's voice says in his head. And Daryl looks at them. At Sherry, stroking Tina's hair, at Tina looking shyly at Daryl. At Dwight, who might have been an asshole but who'd just been trying to find somewhere safe, to protect themselves.   
  
Shit. Aaron's recruiting talk had sunk in too deep. Daryl scowls.   
  
"C'mon then," he says, and the four of them set off through the woods together.

* * *

"Sorry," Sherry says after a while. Tina's much better - she's carrying the bag now, at her insistence.   
  
"I'm not dead weight," she said, and Sherry had handed over the bag and smiled at her.   
  
Daryl grunts. He's sorry - his arm is throbbing and his head hurts, a sort of steady pounding around his eyes, and his wrists are raw from twisting at the ropes all night. But he's free and he's got his bow and that's something, so whatever. She can be sorry.   
  
"Whatever," he mumbles, and Sherry shakes her head.   
  
"We thought you were with them," she says quietly. "Where we were - we were there almost from the start and I still didn't recognize everybody. And there are outposts too, separate camps, we hardly see those people. It - " She looks at Daryl and Daryl knows what she sees. Ratty black jeans, the jagged sleeves of his shirt, his dirt and blood smeared face and arms. He looks like one of them, maybe. "It wasn't that bad when it started, but -"  
  
"Things get harder, people get harder," Dwight says. He doesn't sound like he's trying to explain it or anything. He just sounds tired. "Human nature kicked in and it became a truly unique kind of shitshow."  
  
"People will trade anything for safety," Sherry says. She's looking at Tina as she talks. "For knowing that they're safe."  
  
Daryl wonders if that's true. Sure, it'd seemed true at Woodbury. And at Alexandria, at the prison - maybe.   
  
Daryl wonders what he's traded, for safety. For his place with Rick. He hadn't kneeled, but what had he done? What was he going to have to do?   
  
"Nobody's safe anymore," Daryl says, and Sherry looks at him consideringly, something like sadness etched around her eyes. "Can't promise people that anyhow." He thinks of Alexandria, the dead in the streets, the blood puddled in pristine front yards.   
  
"You could promise the people who want to hear it," Dwight says, but Tina starts running before Daryl can figure out what that means.   
  
"Tina! Hold up!"  
  
It's a house she found, and for a second Daryl wonders if there's anything in there worth taking, if that's why Tina ran.   
  
Then he sees the bodies, too short lumps encased under glass and he knows it's not. 

* * *

It happens fast. The glass is almost beautiful like that - melted and cooled into waves and shapes, like a blanket made of ice. He's looking at it and chewing his finger, as Sherry and Dwight beat themselves up over it, as Tina tiptoes over, a handful of wildflowers in her hand.   
  
It's like something from a fairy tale, like some gruesome Snow White or something. He remembers Beth telling the story to Judith at the prison, warbling out some of the songs. The way the glass looks, tears making clear lines on Tina's dirt smeared face, her hand shaking as she puts the flowers down. It's what Daryl'd pictured when Beth talked about the princess, kept safe under glass.

And like Snow White, the bodies here were only waiting for the right thing to wake them up.   
  
The sound of the glass shattering wakes them all up but not fast enough, and then Tina is bleeding out, there, in between two people she'd loved enough to put flowers over. Daryl knifes the walkers quick but it's not any good. She's still bit, bleeding bad, and Sherry is weeping and holding her, sobbing, as Tina slips away.

* * *

He helps Dwight dig. There's shovels in the greenhouse, soot smudged but whole, and Daryl's good at digging graves. He's had enough practice. For a second he thinks Sherry might ask for three graves - one for Tina, one each for the things that'd killed her - but Sherry doesn't ask for anything. She just sits there, staring. Alone in the world.   
  
"How many walkers you killed?" Daryl asks Dwight, and Dwight looks at him like it's a particularly rude question. Like Daryl's trying to imply something with it, like he's trying to say Dwight should have killed two more, should have saved Tina -  
  
But Dwight just says, "A lot. Couple dozen at least." And keeps digging.   
  
"How many people you killed?"  
  
Now Dwight stops digging and looks at him. "None."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Dwight stares at him. "Why? How many people have you killed?"  
  
Daryl doesn't know anymore. But he's the one asking the questions. "Enough." Dwight looks a little sick.  
  
"How old are you?"  
  
"Old enough." What difference would that make, anyway? Would the people he killed be less dead if he'd been twelve when he killed them instead of sixteen? "Jus' answer the question."  
  
"Why haven't I killed anybody?" Dwight asks. He starts digging again, but it's less like digging and more like stabbing at the ground. Like he's mad - maybe not at Daryl, maybe at the world, at a world where you have to have an answer why you hadn't killed anybody, where you bury little girls trying to find them a better place. "Because if I did? There'd be no going back. There'd be no going back to how things were."  
  
 _We get to come back,_ Hershel whispers in his ear. And Daryl hopes it's true.   
  
"Place I'm from?" Daryl says. "People are still like they were." Most of them. He thinks of Glenn and Maggie, Aaron and Eric. Carol, Rick. Carl, Beth pushing Judith. Olivia handing out rations. Deanna with her video camera. Sam and his stupid floppy haircut.   
  
They were people like they were. For better or worse. From what Tina was saying, it sounds like people like that are better than the people they're running from any day.   
  
Dwight looks at Sherry. Sherry's still looking at her hands, smeared in Tina's blood.   
  
"Yeah?"

* * *

Daryl leads them to the bike which is the first fucking mistake. And if he hadn't been lucky, it might have been the last.   
  
The gun is pressed up against his head and Daryl freezes. He can't let go of the bike without it falling back onto him, so there's nothing to do but stay still and swear.   
  
"Fuck you," Daryl spits, and Dwight has the audacity to look apologetic.   
  
"Sorry," he says. Sherry steps forward, takes the bike, wheels it away from them.

That's his bike, Daryl wants to yell. He built that bike himself, he'd put it together piece by piece, he'd hardly even gotten to ride it, they couldn't -   
  
But why would they care about that shit?   
  
"Give her the crossbow," Dwight says, and Daryl's fingers tighten around the strap reflexively.   
  
"Dwight, maybe we should let him -"  
  
"Have him snipe us down from behind?" Dwight asks.   
  
"He's a kid, he wouldn't kill us -"  
  
"He would," Dwight says with conviction. Daryl doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. He would. If he had to. 

Dwight motions with the gun again. "Give it to her, I said."  
  
Daryl takes the bow and throws it. It almost hurts him. He doesn't stop staring at Dwight.   
  
"Yeah, go on then," Daryl spits when Sherry picks up the bow, her fingers running over the arrows. His arrows, the bolts he'd made, hand carved. "You gon' go back? Gon' be safe?"  
  
"Shut up," Dwight says, and the gun shakes a little.   
  
"Ain't nowhere safe anymore," Daryl says, and Dwight sneers at him.   
  
"What about your place? Where people are people?"  
  
"People ain't never been safe," Daryl says, and Sherry touches Dwight's shoulder and takes the gun from him.   
  
"Your people aren't safe now," Sherry says as Dwight pulls the bike over, straddles it. Sherry's holding the gun on him like she wants to pretend she isn't. "You're close to them. The Sanctuary. You're too close for them to overlook you forever."  
  
"Glad you're leavin' me out here without my fuckin' bow then," Daryl snarls, and Sherry shrugs.   
  
"You said your people were close. You'll find them. And when you do?" Sherry says, getting onto the back of the bike with Dwight. "You should all leave."  
  
For a moment Daryl thinks the bike won't start up for Dwight - that Dwight won't now how to work it or that the Frankenbike, his loyal pet, won't run for anyone that isn't his master. But maybe Daryl did his job too well, because the bike starts up right away, hums the same under Dwight as it did under Daryl.   
  
Traitor, he thinks as Sherry throws something at his feet.   
  
"Clean that wound," Sherry says, and for a second she sounds like Maggie or Carol or Beth. "Don't let it get infected." She wraps one arm around Dwight and keeps the gun steady on Daryl. "You're a good kid. We're sorry," she says, like she means it.   
  
"You ain't," Daryl spits, and then they're gone, zooming away through the trees, leaving him alone in the woods and worse off than he was before he found them. 

* * *

In some ways, Daryl is reminded of being lost in the woods when he was nine. That feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he might really be in trouble this time. The way he keeps shoving it down. He's smarter this time - he won't wipe his ass on poison oak. He just has to find his way back to the road and follow the road to Alexandria.   
  
He thinks of Sophia. How she must have felt, alone in the woods without knives or any knowledge, trying to find a highway she knew was there, right there, if only she could -   
  
But thinking of Sophia makes him feel worse so he tries not to. Just retraces his steps.   
  
He's all the way back to where he crashed - the walker in the helmet still huffing in the dirt - when he hears it.   
  
"Daryl!"  
  
He's hiding behind a tree quick, too quick. He shakes himself. Whoever it is must know his name, and he hadn't ever told it to Dwight and them. Had he? He doesn't think so. And them fucks in the truck, they wouldn't have know it either. There's a twig snapping. A quiet swear. "Daryl?"  
  
"These tracks," someone else says, and Daryl knows that voice. It's Abraham. "Bike went through here. He's gotta be -"  
  
Daryl steps out then. "Hey."  
  
Aaron and Abraham spin around. Abraham is in some kind of fancy dress uniform. Daryl stares. "The fuck happened to you?"  
  
Abraham grins. "Long story," he says. "You all right?"  
  
"Got my bow," Daryl mumbles. He can feel the embarrassment spreading over his cheeks. Got fucking jumped like some ten year old for lunch money. "An' the bike."  
  
Aaron steps forward and Daryl flinches back some. Is Aaron pissed? About the bike?  
  
"As long as they didn't get you," Aaron says, and he turns to Abraham. "Think Sasha's ready with that truck yet?"  
  
"Oughta be," Abraham says.   
  
"What happened to the van?" Daryl asks. Aaron sighs. "They got it?" He thinks of the supplies in the back and his heart sinks.   
  
"Don't you worry," Abraham says, clapping a rough hand on Daryl's back. "We ain't headin' home empty handed. C'mon, now. Let's get outta here. Place gives me the fuckin' creeps."  
  
"Yeah," Daryl says, following them. "Me too."

* * *

Sasha's sitting in a fuel truck not far away. The smile she gives Daryl is swift but glad, and something about her seems lighter, easier than it's been in a while.   
  
"Look who decided to show up," she teases, and Daryl scowls.  
  
"I been lookin' for y'all," he says, and he looks at Aaron. "What happened?"  
  
"Let's save that talk for the ride back," Abraham says smoothly. It's a squeeze to fit them all in the cab of the truck. Daryl's squished between Aaron and Abraham, trying not to cringe every time Aaron presses him into Abraham or Abraham squeezes him closer to Aaron, but he knows he's doing a bad job. Abraham's nice new jacket scratches against his skin in a way that feels familiar. Daryl thinks Abraham almost looks like Merle, that one leave Merle'd had when he finished basic. He'd given a picture of himself in his dress blues to Daryl. "So you don't forget what I look like," Merle'd said, a rough hand on his shoulder.   
  
His dad had torched the picture a week later - _moonin' over Merle's picture like some sorta brother fuckin' faggot_ \- but Daryl remembered how Merle looked. He'd looked serious, straight. Sober. He looked like he could do anything.   
  
It hadn't lasted long, but it'd been a picture Daryl'd wanted to keep.

Abraham looks like that now, and it makes something in Daryl ease up too. Like he's heading home. Like it'll all be okay.   
  
But then the radio crackles and he knows it's never just okay.   
  
"Say again?" Daryl says into the walkie. Aaron next to him has a worried face and Abraham is frowning as he drives and Sasha, over on Aaron's other side, looks tense.   
  
"...Help?"  
  
It's never just okay.  
  



	7. Start to Finish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the dialogue in this chapter is from Season 6 episode 9: No Way Out.

Sasha's eyes are wide and she looks like she wants to rip the walkie out of Daryl's hand. 

"Is that Glenn?" Aaron asks, and then Sasha can't hold herself back and she does take the walkie from Daryl. He doesn't fight her for it. He feels a little sick that he hadn't asked about Glenn before now, that he hadn't -

"Glenn? It's Sasha, did you find Heath and Annie? Over."

The only response is static, and Sasha slams her hand - the one not holding the walkie - onto the dashboard. "Damnit!" She tries again. "Glenn, this is Sasha, what's your twenty, we have transport, over."

Nothing. 

"It could be Alexandria," Aaron says, but Daryl's not sure if that's meant to be a better option or a worse one. "It's not necessarily -"

"Shit," Abraham says.

"So what do we do?" Sasha asks. "Head for Alexandria? If it was Glenn, if he and Heath and Annie are stuck out here and we leave them -"

"We got no reason to believe they ain't on their way home already," Abraham says, but his face is set in a scowl and he doesn't look like he believes himself. "Either way, we lost enough supplies this trip. They're stuck out here, they'll hole up in one of 'em buildings just like we did. We'll make sure Alexandria is all right and then we'll come right back and -"

"We can't leave Glenn," Sasha says fiercely, and Aaron looks like he's torn. 

"Heath and Annie - they're as good as Glenn, at being out here. They can hold their own. If there's trouble back home -" The look on Aaron's face says it all. If there's trouble back home, if there's more Wolves or the walls fell, and they do nothing -

"Alexandria? This is Sasha, confirm transmission."

Nothing. 

"Fuck," Sasha says, and then she's shoving the walkie back at Daryl, like she can't stand to touch it anymore. Daryl takes it.

"Could be neither of 'em," Daryl says. His voice is small, like he doesn't believe it himself, and he doesn't, really. "Them people that got my bike, they got my radio too. And there was others, in the woods, hunting them, could be -"

"We can't turn back for could bes," Abraham says, and his face is like stone. If Daryl looks hard, he can see something twitch in his jaw. "We can't turn back without a location. We finish the mission, get a full understanding of the situation, plan from there." He looks at Sasha in the rearview mirror. "Gotta make the right choice."

Sasha looks away. 

* * *

Daryl wishes he had Sasha's spot near the window. The cabin is too crowded, too cramped, and the tension gets worse and worse the closer to Alexandria they get. Daryl's leg keeps wanting to bounce up and down but there's no room. All he can do is bite at his thumbnail, his cuticles. He tastes blood but he just keeps his eyes focused, forward. Trying to figure out plans for what's coming next. 

The one thing he hadn't thought to plan for was their way getting blocked by a fucking motorcycle gang.   
  
"Abraham," Daryl says, and Abraham grunts.   
  
"Yeah, I see."  
  
"What?" Aaron says, and he looks forward.   
  
"What in the holy shit -" Sasha asks, but none of them have an answer.   
  
Abraham slows down. Brakes. But he doesn't turn off the engine.  
  
"Should we - we could back up, try and turn around - there's a turn off a mile back, we could try and -"  
  
"Wouldn't outrun 'em," Daryl says. He's looking at the bikes. "They're quicker, on the bikes, and they'd get out in front of us." Daryl feels naked without his crossbow, his bike. He scans the guys, looking for Dwight, for the Frankenbike, but neither are there. Just eight guys on motorcycles, looking like Merle's friends but twice and mean and half as drunk, and that can't mean anything good. For a moment, he thinks he sees Merle - but it's not him, and the motorcycle is wrong. It's some Honda piece of shit, not the Triumph. His heart sinks.  
  
"Shit," Sasha says.   
  
"Why don't you come on out, join us on the road?" the man in front yells. His voice is more friendly than Daryl thinks it should be. "You know, if you wanna resist? Try something? I mean, it's a choice I guess." It's a choice the guy sounds like he'd been pleased they'd make. "But we will end your asses. Split you right in two, straight through to the sinuses." The man raises one gloved hand and beckons, like calling a dog or a stupid kid. Daryl scowls.   
  
"Whoever can," Abraham says as he reaches for the keys. "Get to the back of the truck. The RPG." Daryl doesn't know what an RPG is but Sasha's eyebrows go up and Aaron nods intently, looking a little green. Abraham looks at all of them. "Ain't hard to use. Point'n shoot. Easy."  
  
"Right," Sasha says. And Abraham turns the truck off.   
  
They all hop out. Aaron puts himself in front of Daryl, which makes Daryl's scowl wobble - stupid Aaron, what does he think, that Daryl needs to hide behind him or something?   
  
"Yeah, that's great," the leader says encouragingly. Abraham is standing ramrod tall, almost at attention, or maybe it just seems that way because of the dress blues. Sasha's got her surliest face on and Daryl sees how her crossed arms leave one hand very close to her gun. 

"It's going well right out of the gate," the guy continues. "Now, step two - hand over your weapons."  
  
Daryl's hands clench. He hates this tone - the way the guy is speaking to them, like they're stupid or cowardly or like he's already won, like Daryl and the others will do whatever he says, like they're weak. It's a tone that sounds weirdly like his dad, Daryl realizes, his dad when he was drunk or in a good mood and just wanted to talk to Daryl like some dumb dog that needed training.   
  
Daryl doesn't want to get to the part where the guy drops the act.   
  
"Why should we?" Daryl calls out. He doesn't even have a weapon - the knives, sure, but nothing ranged, nothing that could take these guys out, but his fists are clenched like little weapons themselves, attached to his arms, and he's not doing what these fucks say, no fucking chance. Daryl'd given people enough chances today, Sherry and Tina and Dwight in the woods, he's not trusting anyone else. Especially not this guy with his fucking gang wanting them to turn over their shit. 

"Well, they're not yours, son" the guy replies. Daryl scowls. He ain't his son.   
  
"What," Abraham bites out. It doesn't even sound like a question.   
  
"See - your weapons, your fuel, the fuel in your truck -" the guy starts. He's practically counting shit off on his fingers. "You got mints in the glove compartment, you got porn underneath the seats, change in the seats, hell - the seats themselves! The floor mats, your maps, the little stash of emergency napkins you got there in the console? None of those things are yours anymore."  
  
"Whose are they?" Sasha asks. Aaron's looking intently at these guys, their bikes, their clothes. Like looking for clues. And Sasha's just gotten them a pretty big one.   
  
"Your property?" the man says, all grinning fun gone, all weird condescension out of his voice. Daryl can see the guys on bikes shift up, notice the change. "Now belongs to Negan."

* * *

Daryl can't remember enough of what Tina said to him. Something about points. About Sanctuary. About what Negan would do.   
  
He can't remember what she said but he remembers it's shit and there was a reason Dwight and Sherry and her were running through the goddamn woods in the first place and that's enough to tell him that there really is only one way this can go, with the motorcycle people.   
  
Although probably there'd always only been one way to go. 

"If you can get your hands on a tanker?" the guy asks, the friendly tone back. "You're people our person wants to know. So let's get those sidearms, shall we?" The guy heads for Daryl first, because of course he does. He makes that hand motion again, that little beckoning that makes Daryl want to break his fingers. If it weren't for the seven other guys that have Daryl in their sights, he might have tried it. But he doesn't.   
  
"Ain't got one," Daryl mumbles, and the guy gives him an insincere grin.   
  
"What? Big strong boy like you?" The guy reaches for Daryl's belt and slides the knives out of their sheathes. Aaron, still standing a little to the front of Daryl, tenses. The guy grins at him. "What? Defensive, papa bear? Let's get yours, then."  
  
Aaron hands it over without words.   
  
"Thank you. And?"  
  
Sasha hands hers over too. Her eyes are serious, tracking the guy, the guns.   
  
For a moment, Daryl thinks Abraham is going to fight back, even after what he said earlier about getting to the back of the truck.   
  
"If you have to eat shit," the guy says, practically chest to chest with Abraham. He's half a head shorter which must just make Abraham madder. "Best not to nibble."  
  
Abraham hands his over too. The guy grins one more time, like he's really loving this, before he heads back to his gang with all their guns and Daryl's knives.  
  
"Who are you people?" Aaron asks.   
  
"I get the curiosity," the guy says, dumping the guns on one of his flunkies. "But we have questions ourselves. And we'll be the ones asking them while we drive you back to wherever it is you call home."  
  
They all freeze. Daryl wonders if it's as obvious to the people holding them as it is to him.   
  
"First though? Your shit. What have you got for us?"  
  
"You just took it," Daryl says, and the guy sighs like he's disappointed or something.   
  
"Come on," he says. He looks at Daryl, fingers playing with the gun still in his hand. "I mean, can we not, kid? There's more. There is always more."  
  
They stand there still. The guy sighs again, turns around. Points to one of the guys.   
  
"T? Take the kid to the back of the truck. Start inside the back bumper, work your way to the front."  
  
T gives him a shrug, moves forward. He's the one with Daryl's knives - he's shoved them both into the waistband of his jeans. That's something.   
  
"I - I can do that, you don't have to -" Aaron is stepping forward and T is batting him out of the way.   
  
"Sorry papa bear, baby bear's gotta handle this one," the guy says.   
  
"I'll go," Abraham says, and the guy clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth.   
  
"What'd I just say? Shit, you guys are slow. Maybe you're not going to be as useful as I thought."  
  
The guy is shoving Daryl towards the back of the truck, but Daryl's not going easy. He's slowing himself down as much as he can, dragging his feet, mind racing. The RPG, Abraham said. Ain't hard. Point and shoot.   
  
But to point it or shoot it, he'll have to get it. And he has no fucking clue what it is. And T is probably going to have something to say about it anyway.   
  
So T is the first step. Daryl drags his feet more until T leans in to give him another shove.   
  
"Move it kid or we'll -"  
  
Daryl doesn't find out what he'll do because as the man's arms push towards him, Daryl grabs one of them and yanks down, hard.   
  
Hand to hand isn't something he's the best at. He's all right, but better with walkers that can't think, with half rotted skulls. But he's good enough for this. T is off balance, stumbling. He's pulled one of Daryl's knives out and he swears, slashing out at him.   
  
"Fucking dumbass kid -"  
  
Daryl's shoulder feels white hot and then wet and he doesn't hear anything else from the guy after that. Probably because he'd whipped around and jammed his knife into the guys fucking throat.   
  
T chokes like he's trying to yell something, but blood is in the way. He falls.   
  
Okay. Step one, down. Now Daryl just has to figure out what an RPG is and how to use it. 

Turns out, that parts not as tricky as he thought.

* * *

"Y'couldn't just say rocket launcher?" Daryl asks.   
  
"Hey, you figured it out a'right, din't ya?" Abraham says, dusting himself off. Aaron is shaking his head like a dog that got water stuck in it's ears and stumbling over to Daryl, checking him over.   
  
"You all right?"  
  
"Yeah," Daryl mumbles. He doesn't look at T, laid out on the ground. "Woulda been faster," he adds. "Sonuva bitch was tougher'n he looked."   
  
"Did he cut you?" Sasha asks. Aaron looks alarmed, spins Daryl around to look at his back. Daryl hisses.   
  
"A little," Daryl says. He'd sort of forgotten about that.   
  
"Let's get you home," Aaron says. "Get you fixed up."  
  
None of them mention the cry for help, the fact that they don't know who's at home to do the fixing.   
  
"What a buncha assholes," Sasha says, and Daryl spits. He can smell the guys burning and feels a momentary pang - he wishes he coulda saved one of the bikes.   
  
He wishes they'd left them the fuck alone so he wouldn't have had to barbecue them.   
  
Daryl wishes a lot of things. But wishing isn't gonna fix his shoulder. So they load up into the truck and set off for home.   
  
For whatever's waiting there for them. 

* * *

The truck cabin was cramped enough before, but it's worse now, every pothole making his shoulder ache and Aaron's fretting driving him to distraction.   
  
"At least let me put the bandana on it, stop the bleeding -"  
  
"S'fine," Daryl grinds out. He's got the window open - getting cut by some ugly motherfucker in a baseball hat at least gets him the window seat. He wants to stick his whole head out of the window, feel the breeze in his sweaty hair, but he settles for leaning closer.   
  
"We should apply pressure -"  
  
"S'fuckin' fine, I said!"   
  
"Aaron," Sasha says. "He says it's fine."  
  
"Of course he does. He didn't lose a hand or a foot or get blasted away with a grenade or bitten by a roamer so -"  
  
Something about that rubs Daryl the wrong way. Maybe it's the hand comment - Aaron doesn't know about his dad, probably, doesn't know what he's saying. He doesn't know about Hershel either, his leg. He doesn't know anything and he'd been the only person to treat Daryl like a fucking adult, like an equal, and now he's losing his shit over a fucking paper cut -  
  
"Fuck you," Daryl spits, and he leans his head further out the window. The wind rushes in his ears so he can't hardly hear Aaron anymore anyway. Which Daryl thinks is a good solution - Aaron can freak out however much he wants and Daryl can just wait for Alexandria.   
  
It's only when he feels something pressing against his back - something picking at the collar of his shirt - that Daryl realizes not paying attention to what's coming is never a good solution.   
  
"The fuck're you doing!" Daryl says, and he can't tell if he sounds more pissed or scared, which makes him feel more pissed. If the door weren't locked, Daryl'd probably have opened it by instinct and shoved himself out of a speeding truck and into the road. As it is, he whips around faster than he thought possible, his back slamming against the door handle, and Aaron, next to him with a bandana in his hand, looks chagrined.   
  
"I - I said I was just going to put pressure on it -"  
  
"Get the fuck away from me!"  
  
"Guys -" Sasha says, and Daryl squirms as far away from Aaron as possibly, the betrayal almost hurting more than his back.   
  
He'd trusted Aaron. He'd trusted him and he'd gone and -  
  
"Don't make me pull this car over," Abraham says, and Daryl can't tell if he's trying to be funny - trying to break the tension or something, or maybe he doesn't understand why Daryl's so freaked about his back. He's not sure Abraham's ever seen it. Sasha either, although she'd probably heard about Will from the Woodbury people. Abraham is trying to be funny but it's not funny, it's - 

_Boy I'll pull this car over and whup you good you sass me again don't think I won't -_

"Abraham," he hears Sasha saying, "Pull over."  
  
Daryl doesn't hear more because the second the car slows down he's out, eight steps away and taking deep breaths, sucking them in, eyes closed. He feels shaky like he did when they got caught in the Wolves trap and why? None of this matters, he's fine, why'd Aaron have to make such a fucking big deal over nothing, why -  
  
The others don't get out, which Daryl appreciates, even though they're probably talking about him, how fucked up he is. Shit.   
  
That's when Aaron hops out of the truck, tentatively, and shuts the door. He doesn't make to get any closer, and neither does Daryl.   
  
"What?"  
  
"I - I'm sorry, Daryl. I didn't mean to - I honestly thought you'd heard me say that about. Applying pressure. I didn't mean to - startle you."  
  
"Whatever."

"I'm not - good at people I care about getting hurt," Aaron says, and Daryl looks at him. Aaron looks miserable and worried and it makes something in Daryl ease up. Daryl remembers him around Eric, that first night - practically waiting on him, refusing to leave his side even when Rick said he had to.   
  
"I ain't hurt," Daryl growls, because it's easier than thinking about the other part of what Aaron said. "S'a fuckin' scratch -"  
  
"You've bled through your shirt," Aaron points out. Daryl scowls.   
  
"Prob'ly a'ready clotted. It - really, it ain't nothin', I swear." And it isn't. Hell, Hershel'd never even freaked out at an injury this tiny, and he hated Daryl getting hurt worse than probably everyone else. Even Carol wouldn't pitch a pit over something so minor. He tries to calm down because maybe Aaron will listen better when Daryl speaks calmly. "It's really fine."  
  
"All right. I believe you." Daryl gives Aaron a look that must read as untrustworthy, because Aaron holds up his hands. "I do! I'm sorry, I - I didn't mean to make it worse."  
  
"Didn't," Daryl mumbles, even though arguably Aaron touching his back had been about a hundred times more upsetting than that fucker nicking him with a knife. Which Daryl can understand is also fucked up. "M'fine."  
  
"I - okay," Aaron says. His hands are still vaguely up, like he's saying 'Look, I'm unarmed.' He looks upset all of a sudden, which makes Daryl feel bad. 

"C'mon," Daryl mutters. "Should get back in. Lost enough time."  
  
"I - Daryl. I really am sorry -"  
  
"Said whatever, din't I? S'fine. Let's go see how the others are." Something twitches Aaron's face and Daryl feels even worse. Eric's back in Alexandria, where the help call probably came from, and Aaron's stuck out here and he just wanted to make sure Daryl was okay. He shouldn't have freaked out like that, like some fucking pussy, some weakling -   
  
"All right. But - I think someone should look at your back. Maybe Sasha," Aaron says quickly, probably able to tell that Daryl's displeased. "Or Abraham. If - if you're not comfortable -"  
  
Does he think Daryl's freaked out because Aaron's a fag? The thought makes Daryl's cheeks feel weirdly hot.   
  
"Ain't - ain't you or nothin'," Daryl says awkwardly. "Jus' - it really ain't nothin'. Ain't even gonna be much to see."  
  
"I - okay," Aaron says. He looks disappointed, maybe? Or something. "Denise can patch you up when we get back."  
  
"It ain't gonna need stitches," Daryl says, and he wonders how to explain it in a way that Aaron will understand. "It ain't - shit, man. S'just a cut. Had worse fallin' off my bike before all this." Daryl doesn't mention that it was a dirt bike and that once he'd broken his wrist falling off of it. That wasn't the point he was trying to make. "It really ain't anythin'."   
  
Aaron nods slowly. "I - look, Daryl, I understand that, I believe you. It's just - sometimes adrenaline can do weird things, can make you think it's nothing when it's something. If it were somewhere you could check yourself, I'd let you do it and - I'm not - hell." Aaron wipes a hand down his face and looks exhausted. "It's fine. I believe you. We're almost home. I'm sorry."  
  
Daryl's biting at his finger. He stops when he notices, shoves his hands under his armpits. "Fuckin' check then," he pushes out, and he pretends he can't tell how surprised Aaron is.   
  
"What?"  
  
"I - you can just - check my shirt an' see if the bloods drying or not," Daryl mutters. He's not going to strip down out here in the middle of nowhere, in front of Aaron and Sasha and Abraham. Sasha and Abraham are his people - and Aaron is too, maybe, maybe - but still. "Jus' - I'unno, give it a poke or something."  
  
Aaron doesn't ask twice. He comes over and Daryl turns around, faces the truck. He pretends he's not breathing a little faster, and Aaron pretends that too. He flinches a little when gentle fingers prod at his shoulder blade.   
  
"That hurt?"  
  
"Jus' an ache, that's all," Daryl says. And it's true. It really is nothing. 

"Scale of one to ten?"  
  
"Fuck, a one." Daryl's not sure what a ten would be - maybe that time after Woodbury, or the time his dad broke his arm. Finding out Sophia was dead, watching Hershel get executed. But this stupid thing is barely a one. Hell, it should be a half of one. A quarter.   
  
"Seems like there isn't any new blood back here." Aaron hesitates a moment, then continues. "Looks good. You can take care of the rest when we get home."  
  
"Whatever," Daryl says. But at least Aaron isn't talking to him like he's some kind of scared puppy or something. He lets Aaron go back in first and is weirdly gratified that Aaron doesn't switch seats with Sasha or something, doesn't draw attention to the fact Daryl's being weird. It's like he stopped for a bathroom break or something. They all just settle back into the same pattern they had before.   
  
But this time, when Daryl practically hangs his whole upper body out the window, nobody tries to talk to him. 


	8. No Way Out

When they get back towards Alexandria, the first thing Daryl notices is that the walkers aren't all bunched up against the wall anymore, and that's good.   
  
The reason they aren't bunched up against the wall is that a portion of the wall is down, smashed over by the collapsed guard tower, and that's so, so bad.   
  
It got dark maybe forty minutes before they hit Alexandria. It's dim now and the streets are full of unclear forms, staggering around, moaning and groaning. There's also the wet thunking of knife hitting walker skull, the clean swish of Michonne's katana, some scattered gunfire but not enough. Not enough to turn the tide, and it is a tide, an ocean of walkers spilling into their gates, streaming -  
  
"Shit," Abraham says, weirdly calm. "Looks like we'll get to break out the big guns earlier'n I thought."  
  
It's weird that with the panel of the wall down, walkers streaming in, they still can't get in. Well, not with the truck at least. Daryl's grateful the truck is decently high up off the ground - Abraham and Sasha clamber onto the roof of it easy enough, loaded up with guns, while Aaron takes over driving. 

The darkness in front of them shifts and undulates and Daryl grips one of the guns in his sweaty hands. He wants to shoot but he's not sure enough of who is friend and who is foe. He misses his bow, fiercely, even though he doesn't know what use the bow would be in this situation. It's not like it could make Daryl see in the dark. 

The sound of machine gun fire, rapid and jarring and sweet as music, richochets over their heads as Aaron navigates the truck through the gate.   
  
Glenn is the one pushing open the door, smeared in blood and who knows what else, and Daryl's hit by such a wave of relief he almost wants to puke. But there's not time for that as Aaron guns the truck in and Glenn yanks the door open, shoves himself next to Daryl, panting.   
  
"What happened?" Aaron asked. "Did -"  
  
But Glenn just shakes his head. "Don't know. Just got back." He shakes his head, swallows, looks at Daryl and Aaron like he's having trouble getting his thoughts to catch up. "Listen, we - we can lead some of them away, but they're scattered -"  
  
"Naw," Daryl says. He's chewing his thumb, stuck between the two other men, but it's his plan so he might as well be the one to explain it. "We get 'em all together, won't have to lead 'em away."   
  
He can see better with the trucks headlights pointing at the fight - Rosita, her cap blocking her face from view, one quick stab. Eric, hobbling on his stupid boot, Rick draped in a camoflage of walker guts, Michonne's sword singing in the night. He doesn't see Carol, but he knows she's out there somewhere, probably in the fucking middle of it.   
  
He doesn't see Beth either, which is a shame. She'd really like Daryl's plan. 

* * *

Dwight and Sherry had given Daryl the idea, though he wasn't going to share the credit with those assholes. They'd gotten the bike and the bow, they didn't get credit for this.   
  
He saw the valve earlier, when he was wrestling around with T at the back of the truck. Daryl wonders, as he makes his way back there, the others holding the line behind him - Abraham, Sasha, even Maggie and Enid who had hopped down from the roof with the others like they'd always been there, Aaron swinging a machete in front - he wonders if it'll be more complicated than he thinks, if this is a shitty idea and he'd just gotten all of them killed.   
  
Then he opens the panel and pulls out the valve and gasoline starts running immediately, spurting into the pond with a smell that Daryl associates with the garage his dad had worked at in town before he got fired for excessive boozing, with siphoning gas on a lonely stretch of highway with T-Dog.   
  
Daryl doesn't remember hardly anything about chemistry but he remembers shit about oil spills and viscosity and shit so he's pretty much hoping that the gas sits on top of the water - which he feels like is true, something from a long forgotten homework assignment, some lab he'd slept through. He can't tell by looking. If he fucks this up they're dead, they've blown it, there's only so much longer everyone can hold -  
  
"Daryl!" Aaron yells. He's back in the truck - the cabin crammed full now, Maggie clutching Enid awkwardly on her lap, Aaron driving with Sasha and Abraham smashed on top of him, Glenn leaning out one window - and Daryl knows that's his cue. He shuts off the spigot - because probably better if he doesn't blow up all of them in the attempt to save their lives. Daryl's up on the roof quick, nimble feet, and Glenn, hanging out the passenger window in the front, is holding something out to him to light the pond on fire.   
  
Which is how Daryl fires a fucking rocket launcher twice in one day.   
  
He's getting pretty good at it. 

The fire is bigger and hotter than the cabin he and Beth had burned down which at first seems perfect, because it means that the walkers are stumbling towards it (literally like moths to flame). But Daryl chews at his thumb as he watches the walkers stumble in and burn up. Because all it would take is for one of them to slip out of the pond, all alight, and Alexandria will burn to the ground, and wouldn't that be a fucking dream, if he ruined everything trying to save it - 

The walkers don't scream as they burn which is also good. But they smell, which is bad. It's not quite like the smell of human flesh. There's something sick and rotten in it, even in the walkers who are new and fresh. They don't even smell human anymore. Daryl hears someone puking off to one side, but he doesn't let it distract them. Just watches the flames, the walkers, the whole thing, until there's nothing else moving. 

The night all lit up, the fallen panel of the wall being blocked off by the tanker for now, the fact that they're home?  
  
It makes it all feel like a win to Daryl.

At least until he hears that Carl is in the infirmary with half his head wrapped up. 

* * *

There's a sick feeling in Daryl's stomach after hearing Carl got shot again.   
  
It makes Daryl think about the first time Carl got shot - him lying in the bed at Hershel's farm, Lori by his bedside. Maybe he hadn't let himself really think about it because Sophia was missing and he was trying to work on that. Because Carl had had Hershel and Rick and Lori, had Shane. And Sophia'd only had Carol.   
  
And Daryl.   
  
By the time he'd gotten to the farm it'd been clear Carl was going to live. And maybe Daryl'd just been younger then. Even after all that had happened, the dead walking around, Sophia missing, Ed and Jacqui and Amy and Jim all dead, his dad missing with one hand chopped off - even after all that, maybe Daryl'd still thought things worked out, eventually, that Carl would be okay, that Sophia would get found.

He'd been younger and dumber and he's not that kid anymore. Carl could die. If he didn't die, he could wake up - different. Daryl's chewing on his thumb so much it starts to bleed and he can't bring himself to care. Everyone is outside the infirmary - the sun is rising slow, the light gray, Alexandria emerging from the darkness a little battered, but still standing. 

No one speaks. Daryl's tucked up under one of the windows - he thinks it's the one to the room where Carl is, but he's nervous to look. So he just sits under the window and worries.   
  
After a moment, Carol sits down next to him. She's splattered with blood but otherwise seems okay. She's wearing her boots, which eases something in Daryl. Looking like this - bloody and dirty and ready to run - that's his Carol. That's who he wants right now. And she's here.  
  
"You keep gnawing like that, you're going to lose the finger," Carol says, and he feels her hand close around his wrist and tug his hand away from his mouth. He lets her.

"She still workin' on 'im?" Daryl asks. He wants to ask if Carl's going to be okay. If everyone else is okay. But he knows that there aren't real answers to those questions. Easier to ask something concrete, something that can be answered.   
  
"No. She's been done for a while. Apparently -" Carol's throat works for a moment before she continues. "Apparently it just nicked his cheekbone. That's what caused the damage. The bone shattered, and - but the bullet didn't actually penetrate. So - if he wakes up, we'll see. The damage might be -"  
  
Daryl just nods. Might be. "They dead?" Daryl asks.   
  
"Who?"  
  
"Whoever shot him."  
  
Carol closes her eyes for a moment. "Yeah. Michonne took care of it."  
  
Daryl nods again. "Good."  
  
They go quiet again.   
  
"How are you?"  
  
Daryl shrugs. He can feel the cut pull at his shoulder, but just a little. Nothing that bad. 

"Lost my bow," he hears himself saying, and he flushes. Who gives a fuck about his bow when Carl is - 

"We'll find you another."  
  
Michonne had found him that one. The Stryker. He hates Dwight in that moment, furiously. Fuck them. Fuck helping people, it comes back at them always. If Daryl'd been looking out for himself right, they never would have gotten the jump on him, and then maybe they'd have been back at Alexandria earlier, maybe Carl wouldn't have - 

"Heard you're the one to thank for our grand finale out here." Carol's looking at the pond, clogged up with soggy, half burned walker corpses, still slightly steaming.   
  
"Naw," Daryl says. "Aaron found the truck. Just opened it up for him."  
  
"Right. Well. Good job."  
  
As if saying his name summoned him, Aaron appears next to them. Carol tenses as he comes over, her hand automatically going for her knife, before she relaxes. Aaron's the only one who doesn't appear completely shocked at Carol's demeanor. Maybe since he'd seen her when they were on the road.   
  
"All right, she's ready for you," Aaron says. And at first Daryl thinks he's talking to Carol - he wonders who's ready for Carol, with Deanna dead - but Carol is looking at Daryl the same way. Daryl squints at Aaron.   
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Denise. She's ready for you."  
  
Oh. His stupid shoulder.   
  
"I'm a'right," Daryl mumbles. He refocuses his attention on the grass, yanking at it, but he can feel Carol looking at him with narrowed eyes. "She should work on Carl."  
  
"She's done everything she can for Carl," Aaron says. Daryl hates that he says that because it means maybe there's nothing else that can be done, maybe Carl won't ever wake up, maybe -   
  
"Why do you need to see Denise?" Carol asks, and Daryl shrugs again.   
  
"Got a little cut on the run. Ain't no big deal."  
  
"We got - ambushed on the way back," Aaron says. "Daryl got jumped by -"  
  
"Hey, he didn't jump me, I jumped him," Daryl says defensively, looking up. He remembers his knife sliding through T's throat, the choking sound as he fell. He feels dirty suddenly, tired. A layer of dirt all over him. "He's the one din't get up after."  
  
Aaron holds up a hand. "All right, fine. You jumped him. He cut you. And you said when we got back you'd get it seen too."  
  
"Man, Denise's got bigger things to worry about," Daryl says, but then Carol is standing up next to him. She offers him a hand.   
  
"Go deal with that," Carol says. Her hand waits in front of him, not wavering. Daryl scowls.   
  
"M'fine."  
  
"Then it won't take long," Carol says. 

* * *

It's quiet in the infirmary. Daryl's not sure what he was expecting. More injured people, he guesses. Rows of the wounded. But it's almost too still in there. Maggie is sitting on a bed, Glenn next to her. The two of them have their heads pressed together like they don't even need to talk anymore, like they can say everything just by connecting their foreheads. Michonne is holding Judith to her chest in an doorway. She gives Daryl a small, distant smile, but it disappears quick. Even Judith seems subdued, one fist shoved in her mouth, clinging to Michonne.   
  
"Hop up," Denise says. She looks tired but also somehow stronger than she seemed last time Daryl saw her. He sees the exam table she's pointing to and his stomach drops. It's in the middle of the room, facing the front window. No matter which way he sits, his back'll be exposed to the world. Hell, no matter where he goes, his back'll be exposed to Denise, dumb Denise with her glasses and her nervous face looking at him -   
  
Daryl backs up and hits something solid, which makes him jump forward again. Aaron's behind him, and Daryl's about to snap his head off until he sees how horrified Aaron looks.   
  
"Sorry, sorry, I - I didn't mean to bump into you," Aaron says, and Daryl scowls. Fuck. Maybe he's fucked this all up now, with Aaron. Maybe the freak out on the road was too much for him. Daryl turns back to Denise.   
  
"It ain't - it really ain't that bad," he starts, but Denise, wobbly pushover Denise, just fixes a look at him.   
  
"I'll be the judge of that. Hop up."  
  
The window behind her has a blind half drawn. Anyone outside'll be able to look in. They'll be able to -   
  
"Would you - do you need some privacy?" Aaron asks from near the door. Denise looks at Aaron, then back at Daryl. She takes a step towards the privacy partition and Daryl scowls so hard he's surprised he doesn't shoot thunder clouds out of his eyes, like in Carl's comics.   
  
"Ain't a fuckin' pussy," he snarls, and he hops up onto the table with his arms folded across his chest tight. Fuck them. 

"You need anything else, Aaron?" Denise asks as she goes over to the sink, starts washing her hands. Aaron jumps a little.   
  
"Me? Oh, no. No, I - I was just going to ask if you had a painkiller. Eric's been walking on the boot and he's hurting a little. Nothing too high powered, a Tylenol or something would be fine, if -"  
  
"In the cabinet," Denise says. She's shaking her hands off to dry them, and Daryl sees some droplets shake off and splatter Maggie. Maggie doesn't say anything but she gives Daryl a commiserating look as she wipes the water from her cheek. Daryl misses Hershel suddenly, like a phantom limb. Hershel's the only person whose ever stitched him up before. Hershel'd already seen everything, and he'd never thought less of Daryl for it. Daryl misses Hershel, his soft voice, his gentle hands, his suspenders, the way he sounded when he talked to the horses. Misses Hershel saying "We've all got scars." 

_And Daryl? If you want to talk - about anything - I'm always here. All right?_

He wishes Hershel were here. But he's not. And Daryl can't look at Maggie anymore, can't let himself think about Hershel, about the prison. It's gone.   
  
They're gone.  
  
Daryl hears the front door open and shut - there goes Aaron. The Denise is standing in front of him, waiting.   
  
"Well?"  
  
Daryl scowls and tugs at his shirt. It's sleeveless, so maybe if he just shifts it to one side - 

"Gonna need a better view than that," Denise says. Suddenly Daryl is hyperaware of Maggie and Glenn, of Michonne, even though they're probably busy with their own shit and don't care about his back.   
  
Suddenly he feels incredibly stupid. Carl's in the other room with half his head shot off and Daryl's freaking about some stupid scars? Fuck that. He unbuttons his shirt in one big rush and pulls it off of his shoulders. If Carl's going to have to live with a mangled face ( _if he lives_ , a little voice says in his head, _that's if he even wakes up_ ) then Daryl can deal with dumb Denise seeing his back.   
  
He doesn't take the shirt all the way off, though. He can feel the cut - he hisses slightly as he lowers the shirt, feels the skin pull around it - and it's high on his shoulder so he lets the shirt cover his lower back, even though there's only two scars down there. They're gnarly though, twisted from infection and wide, taking up a diagonal swathe of his lower back that even Daryl can see, if he looks over his shoulder. Which he tries not to do anyway, if he can help it. Because they don't matter, anyway. Not really. Not now.  
  
Daryl feels Denise go still behind him and he tenses. Here it fucking comes. She's gonna blubber at him, ask questions and shit. Well, he won't answer them. Denise isn't Hershel, he doesn't owe her shit, she wouldn't get it anyway even if he - 

But he just feels gentle fingers poke his shoulder - cool, almost clammy from just being washed. Daryl scowls and feels himself go even tighter.   
  
"Well," Denise says, and her voice sounds lower than it was before. She clears her throat and sounds normal again. "Well - it's not too bad. Shouldn't need too many stitches."  
  
Daryl's head whips around, looks at her.   
  
"Don't need stitches," Daryl says. "Ain't bleeding anymore. Aaron checked."  
  
"Well, maybe in the middle of setting the pond on fire and saving all our lives, you might have torn it open again," Denise says, which makes Daryl blush and turn back around. He kicks a leg, sullenly. Wasn't just him. "Won't take long. You want something for the pain?"  
  
Daryl stares at her. "What pain?" His shoulder is throbbing some but nothing crazy. He'd gone to school with worse shit than this, before.   
  
"The - when I give you the stitches? I mean I'll be - sticking you with a needle, it's not the most comfortable -"  
  
"Ain't gotta be comfortable," Daryl says. "Plus you said weren't gonna take long."  
  
A pause. "I - if you're sure."  
  
"Whatever. M'sure."  
  
"Okay, then. Guess I'll just - get to it. Here -"  
  
There's a clang from behind him and Daryl jumps about half a foot. It's not that he actually expects Denise to fuck with him or try and wallop him or anything. But with his back all exposed and trying not to look at her, he hadn't noticed her reaching for the medical supplies. And when she'd knocked it -   
  
"Sorry," she says. She's on her hands and knees on the floor, scooping things up - a pair of scissors, a metal tray, a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol. She's blushing a little and she's lost some of her ultra capable manner, which makes Daryl feel a little more normal. It's just Denise. She doesn't matter.   
  
He makes to hop off the table, to help, but she finishes before he can and she's replacing everything on the tray. "All right," she says, pushing her glasses up on her nose. "Okay. Um - here, let me just -"  
  
She's threading a needle, almost cross-eyed. It's real surgical thread, black. Daryl remembers Hershel stitching him up with a sewing kit. What Hershel'd have given for real surgical thread.  
  
Daryl turns back around and lets her work. 

She's quick and steady - for all she seems like a fucking butterfingers, she doesn't mess around with the stitches. Cleaning out the wound almost hurts worse than the stitches themselves. There's something about the way the liquid hits the cut that makes him hiss, makes his fingers grip at the edge of the exam table, a burn that spreads then fades. The stitches aren't nothing after that - they sting, but not too bad. Daryl can ignore it. It's weird to sit stock still for someone puncturing you with a needle and tugging a thread through the holes she made in your skin. If he thinks about it like that, it's hard to stay still, so Daryl doesn't think about that. He watches Denise's shadow on the floor in front of him, listens to the gentle murmur of Maggie and Glenn's conversation, the quiet huffs of Judith's breath. If Daryl listens really hard, he can her a faint rumble from the next room. Rick's voice. Praying? Daryl focuses on something else. He can feel Denise's breath on the back of his neck when she leans in and it makes him shiver.   
  
"Try and hold still," she says, and Daryl scowls at the floor. He is holding still. Ain't his fault she's breathing all over him.  
  
Hershel was faster but Denise is fast enough. Ten stitches later, she's tying the last knot, and Daryl's got his shirt back up before she even steps away. His shoulder protests the quick action, but he doesn't care.   
  
"Shirt down again," Denise says in a matter of fact voice. "I've got to dress that so it doesn't get infected. Otherwise it might -" Denise doesn't finish the thought.   
  
Otherwise it might scar? Is that what she was going to say? It'll scar anyway, Daryl's sure - stitches always do, don't they? He doesn't care about one scar more or less on his back.   
  
He lowers his shirt again and lets her dress the wound, sticking a big gauze pad over it. Alexandrians and their fancy medical supplies.   
  
After that, Denise has to be finished. Daryl pulls his shirt up again and starts buttoning it with quick fingers.   
  
"I -" Denise is chewing her lip in front of him. "You know I wasn't originally going to be a surgeon? Or I guess, actually originally I was going to be a surgeon but I - I mean I went to school for that and everything but it wasn't really the right fit, I was having these panic attacks? And then I got more interested in the panic attacks so I decided to switch to -"  
  
Daryl's trying to figure out what the point is of whatever the hell Denise is trying to say when a call come from the back bedroom.   
  
"Denise! Michonne!"  
  
Michonne is clutching Judith in the doorway still. Or she was - the second she hears Rick yell, she's gone. Denise too - whatever point she was trying to make doesn't matter anymore as she sprints to Carl's bedside.   
  
Daryl wants to run while he can but he can't leave when Carl - when he might be -  
  
Glenn is standing up, looking torn and helpless. Maggie too, from her seat on the bed.   
  
"I should -" Glenn says, and Maggie tugs at his hand.   
  
"Don't," she says. "They'll let you know if they need you." She looks at Daryl. "How's your shoulder?"  
  
Daryl just shrugs. It twinges as he does, and Maggie tries to smile at him. It's forced and terrible.   
  
"Guess nothing too bad if the Dixon shrug still works."  
  
Michonne appears from the back bedroom as quickly as she arrived. Judith is fussing all of a sudden, her face scrunched up, her one leg kicking. Maggie, Glenn, and Daryl stare at her, and Daryl feels his throat tighten. Judith had been so calm before. Was she upset now because Carl -  
  
But Michonne is smiling, her smile wider than Daryl's ever seen it, and there's tears running down her face. She holds Judith out to Daryl, who takes her. The Kicker is fussy with him too, and Daryl catches the whiff of a diaper emergency.   
  
"Can you change her?" Michonne asks, her smile radiating out. "I want to stay with Carl. He's awake."  
  
Daryl's never been so happy to change a stinking diaper in his life.


	9. Clean Up

Alexandria is trashed again. Daryl feels a weird sense of deja vu - didn't they just do this? Instead of human bodies with W's dug into their foreheads, the streets are littered with the remains of the dead, walker blood and guts strewn everywhere, a smoky smell hanging over everything, the previously pristine pond gritty and gray.   
  
In some ways, Daryl doesn't mind. He feels off kilter - getting separated from Aaron and the others, running into Dwight and losing his bike and bow, getting ambushed, killing those guys and coming back to find Alexandria overrun and Carl missing an eye, these things seem to spin his brain in a million different directions. It's nice to have something to do that doesn't involve talking, that's just the basic grind of trying to make a place livable after disaster.   
  
Carol's off kilter too. Daryl's not sure why but there's something - the way she looks at Morgan, the looks she gets sometimes from Denise. Something happened when he was gone and Daryl's not sure what, or why it's messed up Carol. When he finds out what really happened to Carl (Ron, Michonne's sword in his chest, Sam and Jessie being turned to pulp in front of him) Daryl thinks he might get it. They were meant to help Sam. And look what they'd done. 

Daryl wonders if they'd never come to Alexandria, if it'd still be like this. Or if they bring it with them, trouble, if it follows them wherever they go. Maybe it follows Daryl, turns up wherever he is like a bad penny. Maybe it's something ground into his skin, a dirt that'll never wash off. Daryl doesn't share this theory with anyone. He lets it sit inside him instead, worries at it like a loose tooth.   
  
The world is fucked, is all. It makes sense to be off. Daryl doesn't push. Lets Carol be. She doesn't push him either. They sit together at night sometimes, after the days work of cleaning, and they don't even talk, just sit. Which feels like enough for Daryl. Helps him spin his brain back in, slowly, like reeling in a fishing line. He doesn't know if sitting with him does anything for Carol. He hopes it does. But he can't tell.   
  
It takes them four days to get the place looking halfway normal. A lot of men are working on the fence - pushing the line back, using the opportunity of the downed wall to shift them all back for planting room. Daryl tries to go but is warned away by Denise, who seems scared he'll pop his stitches. Daryl scowls and listens, if only so he doesn't give Denise a reason to try and look at his back again. Carl is still in the infirmary. Denise says he'll be able to leave in the next couple days, but when Daryl visits the other boy is awkward, his head swiveling at every sound like he's trying to source every noise. It makes Daryl feel twitchy too, and he's secretly relieved when his visiting time is up. Not because Daryl doesn't like seeing Carl but because he doesn't know what he's meant to do, how to act. Is he meant to ignore the eye? Tell Carl it doesn't matter? Offer to help? He ends up doing some weird combination of all of those things, and even though Carl always seems glad to see him and a little disappoint when Daryl leaves, Daryl feels sick and mad every time he leaves the infirmary, his stomach twisting and churning because he's so fucking bad at that shit. 

Daryl doesn't see Aaron. Or he sees him, he isn't fucking blind. Aaron and Eric are everywhere, clearing up, in every planning meeting, working on the wall. Eric's boot has come off and he limps around doing whatever he can. But Daryl doesn't seek them out. He doesn't go to their house. There's no reason, now. There's no bike there waiting for him, and Aaron probably won't ever take him out again. There's no going out until all the walls are fixed, anyway. So Daryl sits in the house in the day, looking out the window towards the other side of the wall. Will they ever let Daryl out again, without his bow? He knows that the bow is what makes him different from the other kids. It reminds the others that he's useful, self sufficient. Without it, he'll be trapped here, trapped behind walls in a way that makes him snappy and sullen, sitting in his room chewing his thumbnail and worrying. 

He finally picked a room. Rick had made him. The room he picked is probably meant to be a study or something - it's smaller than all the other bedrooms, which Daryl likes. He pulled in a mattress and set up his sleeping bag and that's all he needs. It's not like he has much to unpack. The window looks towards the walls and his clothes are in the corner in a milk crate and all in all, it's not much different from his room at his dad's cabin. Daryl doesn't need much. And he'll admit that the privacy is nice, especially now when he doesn't have the safe haven of Aaron and Eric's garage to escape to. 

It's the privacy that allows Daryl to finally pull out the book. 

* * *

He doesn't know why he kept it. With their long slog north, there were more useful things to carry. He'd kept it shoved at the bottom of his bag, the pages crinkled and puffed up from where it's gotten wet, splattered with dirt and mud, the cover creased. He'd never so much as opened it. He hadn't had the time. But now all Daryl has is time, stuck in the house with nothing to do but think, think about all the ways he's fucked up, all the shit that's wrong. He's off kilter and maybe he has been for a while now, maybe since they got to Alexandria. 

_Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse._

Daryl opens it and almost flips it shut again right away. The table of contents is practically written in a different language. He's not smart enough to understand this shit. _Development in the Context of Deprivation? The Trauma of Child Abuse: A Resource Loss Model?_ The words swim and jerk around the page and he runs his finger down the table of contents looking for anything he could understand. But the shit he understands is almost worse. _The Resource of Feelings: Emotional Awareness. Narratives of Fear. Narratives of Shame. Narratives of Loss._  
  
Daryl doesn't understand any of this shit and he's never going to. He slams the book shut but it's not satisfying, the curled up paper cover closing with a soft pfft of air. He doesn't need this book. He doesn't even know why he took it. He doesn't need to be treated. If you survived something, it was over. What did you need treatment for? 

But sometimes it doesn't feel over. Daryl didn't feel that way as much on the road - there'd been too much else to deal with, too many other things to get through. But in Alexandria he's jumpier than he's been since Hershel's farm, reacting like a baby to shit he thought he'd got over a long time ago. He thinks about his freak out in the car with Aaron, his panic at the side of the road over Aaron trying to go under his shirt. Maybe it's because when the world isn't normal, when he's living in a prison and killing walkers every day, when he's trekking through the woods with just Beth for company, life before feels far away. But in Alexandria it's everywhere, because people here are pretending the world is how it was and the only way the world before had been for Daryl was shitty. 

Maybe it's because Daryl trusts Rick and Carol and they don't push. And maybe Daryl trusts Aaron too, or maybe he could trust Aaron. But Aaron does nothing but push, even though he probably doesn't understand that's what he's doing. Because he's treating Daryl like he's normal but maybe Daryl isn't normal, maybe that's what the book could do. Maybe.   
  
Daryl doesn't understand why he's worse now than he was before, now that his dad is dead and rotting in Georgia and he is alive in Alexandria. Shouldn't things get better, the further away they were? But sometimes they feel worse. 

Daryl opens the book and tries again but he doesn't get much further. It's like a technical manual to a machine he's never even seen before and the jargon doesn't fit and he doesn't get how all the pieces lock together. But he tries.   
  
Trauma, he learns, is from the Greek word for wound.

He's puzzling over the first chapter to the book, trying to skip to something he can get, when there's a knock at his door. 

Daryl's lucky his bed is just a nest of blankets on a mattress on the floor, because otherwise he'd have fallen off. He hides the book as quickly as he can and the door opens and there's Rick, blinking at him, cradling Judith to his chest.   
  
"Why'd you even bother to knock if you're just gonna walk on in?" Daryl snarls. His heart is beating fast and he thinks Rick's eyes linger on the square shape of the book under the blankets.   
  
"Sorry, you didn't answer so I just wanted to check if you were in here. You've got a visitor."  
  
Daryl squints at Rick. What? 

"Should -" Rick's lips are twitching like he's trying not to laugh. "Should I give you a minute?"   
  
Rick thinks he's been jerking off. Daryl's face turns bright red and hot. That's what Rick thinks he's hiding under the blankets. He can't decide if it's better to let Rick keep thinking that or to correct the assumption. Can't figure out which is worse, which is more embarrassing. He feels sick for a moment, feels like he's been caught doing something wrong.   
  
"I - I ain't - " Daryl stammers, and the laughter disappears from around Rick's mouth and he looks faintly concerned.   
  
"Daryl?"   
  
"What visitor?" Daryl asks. He gets up, away from the bed - away from the stupid book and whatever stupid ideas Rick's getting. He scrubs his hands on his pants like he's worried the text from the book has rubbed off on them, like Rick will look at his hands and see his secrets inked all over them. _Trauma. Abuse. Degeneration. Poor life functioning._ Daryl can't think of who would come to see him that wouldn't just come up to his room and knock. Maybe Denise wanted to remove his stitches? But then she could just tell him when he went to visit Carl. 

"Aaron," Rick says, the concern around his eyes still there but relaxed a little. Daryl scowls.   
  
"Why?"  
  
"I imagine because he wants to see you," Rick says gently. Daryl scowls more. "Do you want me to tell him to go?"  
  
The last thing Daryl wants to do right now, when he already feels awkward and uncomfortable and rubbed raw, when his head is teeming with words and ideas he doesn't understand and can't accept, is to see Aaron. But Aaron is stubborn as shit. If Daryl doesn't see him now, he'll find him somewhere else. And Daryl's not scared of Aaron. Doesn't need Rick doing his dirty work for him. He's not weak. He can tell Aaron to fuck off all by himself. 

"Naw," Daryl mumbles. "I'll talk to him."  
  
"All right." Rick looks at him carefully. "I'm going to put Judy down for her nap. Holler if you need anything, all right?"   
  
Daryl's face flushes again. Rick's talking to him like he's some stupid kid, like he's afraid of being alone with Aaron. Fuck that. "Whatever," Daryl grunts. And he goes downstairs. 

Aaron's hovering awkwardly in the entryway. He's dirty from whatever work they were doing on the wall that day - he's brushing at the grime on his hands with a frown, like it's personally offended him. When he hears Daryl coming, he looks up and grins at him.   
  
"Hey there. Long time no see."  
  
"Saw you earlier," Daryl mutters. "When I was going to the infirmary."  
  
"Well. Long time no talk."   
  
Daryl shrugs. His shoulder twinges a little - not in real pain, just in slight discomfort. A reminder that he's not one hundred percent.   
  
"Do you - do you mind if we talk?"  
  
Of course Daryl minds. He hates talking at the best of times. All of a sudden the walls in the house feel too close and Daryl scowls at Aaron, shrugs again.   
  
"Whatever," Daryl mumbles. The walls feel stifling and he knows Rick is upstairs and that even though Rick won't listen, Rick might still here. So Daryl jerks his head. "Let's go."  
  
Aaron follows Daryl until they hit the street. Then Daryl feels at a loss. He hasn't explored Alexandria, not like the prison or Hershel's farm or the land around his dad's cabin. He doesn't have any good hiding places, any private pathways to walk through. But Aaron knows where he's going and sets off there. It isn't until they stop walking that Daryl realizes they're back at Aaron's place. 

The garage door is ajar, the tools and bike parts just as Daryl left them. The place where the bike is usually parked is a gaping hole. Daryl shifts his eyes away from it. 

"I'm sorry about the bike," Aaron says. He sits down on one of the work benches. He's looking up at Daryl, his face open and friendly and a little bit sad. "You did such good work on it."  
  
Daryl shrugs again, feels his shoulder pull. "Shouldn't have let them get the jump on me. Fuckin' stupid."  
  
"Hey. Could have happened to anyone. I'm just glad you're all right. You're more important than the bike."   
  
Daryl scowls and goes over to the scattered tools. Starts to collect them, one by one. He'll clear all this shit up and then he'll leave and then there won't be anything left keeping him and Aaron together. Daryl tries to tell himself that's for the best. 

"Are you all right?"  
  
Daryl grunts. Doesn't look at the man. "Yeah. Denise stitched me up or whatever. Good as new."   
  
"That's not - exactly what I meant." There's a long moment of quiet. Daryl focuses on the tools under his hands, the smooth, cool metal, the weight of them. "Who taught you how to ride a motorcycle?"

Daryl peeks at Aaron from under his bangs. "My brother, I guess," Daryl says slowly. He's not sure why the change in conversation topics, feels like there must be a trap there somewhere, but it's better than being asked if he's okay or told that he's important or whatever, so he'll do it. "Used to ride dirt bikes. When I was a kid. My brother got the Triumph after he got out of prison." He clams up after that, looks at Aaron - doesn't remember if he'd ever told any of the Alexadrian's about that before. Most of them probably didn't know he had a brother, let alone one who'd been locked up. But Aaron doesn;'t seem to react. He's just watching Daryl still. 

"Nice," Aaron says. "I used to ride bikes with my brother. Not dirt bikes, just - regular bikes." The look on his face is wistful. "We used to ride around all day when we were kids. It'd be tough to get us in by dark."   
  
Daryl remembers Merle's form in front of him on the motorcycle, Daryl's small arms clinging to his waist, desperate not to fall off.  
  
"Sometimes I think it was the only time my mother really approved of me," Aaron says ruefully. "When I was looking after him."  
  
Aaron doesn't say his brother's name and Daryl does't ask it. He remembers what it feels like, when saying a name is like ripping a scab off a wound that won't heal. He remembers the smell of Merle, cigarettes and sweat and his leather vest, remembers being really little hearing the door to the cabin creak shut and knowing it was safe to come out now, because Merle was back and Merle wouldn't let anything bad happen. There's a lump in his throat suddenly and Daryl stares down at the tools, blinking, his mouth twisted to one side. He misses Merle. And he'll never find him again. 

"My ma died," Daryl grunts out, because somehow thinking about his ma hurts less than thinking about Merle. "When I was little."  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that."   
  
Daryl scowls, shrugs. Feels the ghost of an ache brush across his shoulder. "Was a long time ago."   
  
"And your dad?"  
  
Inside Daryl freezes, but he makes himself keep moving, his hands moving tools where they're meant to go, cleaning up scraps. He's not going to go into it. He's not.   
  
"Not that long ago," Daryl says, and Aaron doesn't push. 

"My dad wasn't really involved much. My mother and he were divorced when I was pretty young. She thought that might be why I turned out the way I did, you know."

For a moment Daryl doesn't know - because Aaron is nice? Is honest, is loyal? His mom thought that being raised by a woman made him -   
  
Oh. Or not. 

"Apparently that's what makes you gay. No strong male role models." Aaron's voice sounds a little harsh on that, different to how Aaron normally sounds. Daryl steals a look at him. He looks the same as usual, but his hands are pressing up against the front of the work bench, knuckles white with pressure.   
  
Daryl thinks about his dad. Was his dad a strong male role model? Was Merle? Or were role models people like Hershel, like Rick? Did you have to be good to be a role model? Or could your role model be shitty, be an asshole or a monster, and would that mean you modeled yourself into a monster too?

"She was a pretty confused woman," Aaron continues. "I think that's why my father - well. I think it can't have been easy for him either, living with her."  
  
Daryl doesn't say anything. That seems like it should be a reason not to make anyone else live with her, if Aaron's mom was too crazy for Aaron's dad to even want to be around her. But that's a conversation so far beyond the realm of Daryl's ability that he can't even think about it. He finishes gathering tools and sorting them and casts around for something else to do. There's a broom in the corner and Daryl starts to sweep up, catching loose bolts and screws and dirt into a big pile.   
  
"I don't talk about her much," Aaron says. "Mostly just to Eric. It's hard for him to understand. His parents - well, they certainly weren't perfect, but they weren't quite like her."   
  
Are any parents perfect? Daryl thinks about the parents he saw growing up, most of them cut from the same Will Dixon school of parenting. He thinks about Rick, Rick ripping out Joe's throat with his teeth, Rick ignoring Carl and Judith when Lori died. Thinks about Hershel - Hershel, who Daryl thinks was hands down the best person he'd ever met. Hershel had been a boozer, but he'd quit for his kids. That meant something. But then Daryl remembers the barn, the walkers stumbling out, Hershel's face, how he fell off the wagon. He thinks about Carol. Carol who had probably had been perfect except for the parts of her that made her stay with Ed. Maybe people just suck as parents, mostly. Maybe there's no reason to need them. 

But Daryl knows where Aaron is going with this now. Because there's a big difference between not perfect and Will Dixon, and it sounds like Aaron's going to say there was a big difference between not perfect and whoever his ma was, like Aaron is going to want to talk about - 

"I think in her own way she was trying to protect me," Aaron continues. His voice is still sort of light, easy, but there's a forced tone under it that makes Daryl tense up. He doesn't want to hear this and Aaron doesn't want to say it, so why is he? "I think she didn't want me to have a hard life. She thought the only way to help me was to make me into the man she thought I should be."  
  
Daryl almost flinches at that, because that's Will Dixon all over. His voice is suddenly loud in Daryl's head, pounding in his ears in a way that makes his palms sweat around the broom handle. _You think growin' up with your grandaddy was some kinda picnic? Think he never whupped me none? He din't need to like me, I wadn't his friend. I was his boy and it was his job to teach me to make my own goddamn way in the world and he sure as shit did. An' I taught that to you, and Merle, and lookatcha. The only things give you value are the things I taughtcha. Y'think they'd like you half as much you didn't feed them?_

He can't feed them anymore. His bow is gone.

Daryl realizes Aaron is still talking and he doesn't know whether he should pay attention or not. He hates this conversation, he hates it because he knows where it's heading but he doesn't know how to stop it, he doesn't have words to make it go away. Daryl desperately thinks back to the book, for something there that would make this conversation disappear, but there's nothing he can remember or hold on to.   
  
The only thing he remembers is that trauma is the Greek word for wound.

" - used to make me eat foods I didn't like. Thought it would make me more manly. Salmon patties, applesauce, onions." Aaron sounds vaguely ill talking about it. Wounded. Trauma. Daryl thinks it's funny that growing up, he'd have been happy to have his dad make him eat anything, because at least he'd have food. But maybe Aaron would have rather get whupped than have his mother force him every day to change shape into somebody he wasn't.

"She wasn't physically abusive though," Aaron continues, and suddenly all the air is gone from the room and whatever charitable feelings Daryl'd been having towards Aaron have evaporated. His hands are tight around the broom handle like he wants to swing out with it, smack Aaron and make him stop doing this, make him stop talking or pushing or - 

Daryl wonders if anyone has ever come right out and said it like that before. Abuse. Physical abuse. Daryl knows it was bad - knows intellectually that other people would look at it and think abuse. Hell, he wouldn't have stolen that fucking book in the first place if he didn't know that's what some people would call it, what - but Daryl can't connect the dots to the word which sounds bloodless and somehow bloody and his whole life.   
  
"My dad didn't abuse me," Daryl says, his throat tight, and he's suddenly furious with himself. Why is he lying now? When his dad is dead and rotting in Georgia, when Daryl is here and Aaron is telling him secrets, when Daryl has Carol and Rick and Carl, Michonne and Maggie and Glenn, when all of that is over and he's stitched up and he's alive and he's not going to let anyone put hands on him again? Who is he protecting now? He remembers the doctor at the free clinic, setting his arm after his dad broke it, _anything you want to tell me,_ teachers at school, _we can't help you if you don't say anything, you need to take the first step._ They acted like Daryl was protecting his dad but that was horseshit. Daryl was protecting himself, doing what he had to. But what does he have to do now? What is any of this for?

Aaron isn't saying anything and the garage is quiet. Aaron's probably pissed that he's sharing all this personal shit with Daryl and Daryl won't - he can't even - so somehow Daryl finds himself talking, even though it's the last thing he wants to do.   
  
"I mean it wasn't - my dad was a dick, yeah, but -" Daryl can't find the words. What was his dad? Who was he? Daryl can't even remember anymore any of the good parts. And there had been some. Out in the woods, tracking, nailing his first buck, his dad slapping him on the back with a grin wide enough to split his face. Coming home with a shitty beat up dirt bike and shoving it at Daryl and Merle, disappearing before they could even say thank you. It must have been more complicated than Daryl remembers, or why would Daryl have stayed for so long? Why wouldn't he have disappeared into the woods one day and never come back? 

"He was an asshole or whatever but - you know, we gave as good as we got," Daryl says, and feels himself flushing. His dad had used to say that about Merle - that Merle gave as good as he got, like it didn't matter what Dad threw at him because Merle would throw it back with extra. His dad had said that usually to make the point that Daryl couldn't even take what he was given, let alone give it back. Merle had given their dad a black eye once, broke his nose, and sure Merle had walked away hurt worse, the unquestionable loser in those fights, but at least he'd fought. Daryl never fought. He just got whupped.   
  
"I'm sorry to hear that," Aaron says, and Daryl is angry again, furious, and he's not sure who he's more angry at, Merle for leaving or his dad or Aaron or Daryl himself.   
  
"Fuck off," Daryl spits. "You ain't - that shit doesn't matter anymore. Yeah he was bad or whatever but he's gone, a'right? He's gone so none of that shit means nothing."  
  
"I still can't eat applesauce," Aaron says quietly. "When Rick found some in my pack he made me eat some and I almost vomited. And my mother's been gone a lot longer than your dad."  
  
"Well, just because you're fucked up doesn't mean I am," Daryl snarls. Which is a huge joke - Aaron's not fucked, he's kind and smart and good, Daryl's the one who can't let the guy ride passenger on the bike with him because it reminds him of Joe, who can't let himself get pat on the back because he's expecting it to hurt.   
  
"I didn't say you were," Aaron says gently. "I'm just - I like you, Daryl."  
  
Daryl's mouth is already open for the next retort, but on that his mouth closes so fast his teeth click. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? 

"You're sharp and you're smart and there isn't anyone I'd rather have on my team out there."  
  
There's a but coming. Daryl knows. _But you're weak. But you're damaged. But I can't trust you out there if you're going to be such a pussy. But_ -

"I just want you to know - it gets better," Aaron says. And that's so far from what Daryl was expecting that he finds himself looking at Aaron straight on. 

"What?"  
  
"Not - I know it's different," Aaron says slowly. "I'm certainly not an expert in any of this." This makes Daryl think of the book hidden under the blankets in his room, the expertise locked inside it with words and ideas he can't understand. "I don't - I don't know what the right way to go about all this is. But I know I made you feel - uncomfortable, the other day. Probably have a number of times." Aaron's got a grin on his face that looks mad and sad all at once and Daryl can't tell which of those emotions are aimed at him. "And I just - I want to say that - you don't have to be uncomfortable about that. I - you know, to the extent that it's possible, I understand. I'll be better, about that stuff. All right? I'll back off." Aaron looks hesitant then. "And if - I can keep my distance. If that would make you more comfortable. If that - " Aaron trails off and just nods his head. "Yeah."  
  
Daryl doesn't know what to do with any of that. Aaron saying he understands should light a fire in Daryl - he should be pissed because Aaron doesn't understand and he never will, nobody here does, except maybe Sam and Ron and they're dead. Except for Carol. But maybe it's the way Aaron said it. _To the extent that it's possible._ Because it's not possible and that's right. But it doesn't mean Aaron can't get closer. 

All of a sudden Daryl is exhausted of this. He's tired of flinching and jumping and sweating under shirts on hot days, he's tired of nerves and the feeling that crunches his stomach when he's afraid he's in trouble, he just so tired of all of that shit. He wants it to be done with that shit already, he just wants it to be over. And the way Aaron talks about it makes it sound like it can be, some day.   
  
And maybe that's enough.   
  
"Didn't - wasn't you," Daryl mumbles. He's chewing on his thumbnail and he's not sure when he started doing that, but he doesn't stop right away. It's comforting. "I mean - ain't like you in particular. That made me uncomfortable or whatever."  
  
"Well. I'm glad," Aaron says, and then he looks almost comically concerned. "Or - I mean - I'm glad that it wasn't me in particular. I'm not glad that you're uncomfortable. Or I mean, I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me that you're - wait -"  
  
"Man, shut up," Daryl says, but he's grinning and he's got his thumb out of his mouth and his hands around the broom handle again, and he starts sweeping.   
  
"Not one of my skills," Aaron says, a grin in his own voice. Daryl shrugs. He can hardly feel the pull at his shoulder at all.   
  
"I'm good at that," Daryl says. "Shutting up. Ain't never been like - a talker, or whatever." He sweeps for a moment, quiet. "Merle was," Daryl says suddenly, looking carefully away from Aaron. "Never shut up." 

He can't hear Aaron's response, but Daryl thinks Aaron knows what he means. It's a peace offering. It's something, something small and dirty but still precious to Daryl. He can't remember the last time he said Merle's name out loud. 

"My dad couldn't even shut him up," Daryl says, and then he clams up. That was too much. Too far. He finds himself scowling at the ground, shoulders tight, the stitches on his back throbbing ever so gently. He can't talk about that shit, not yet. Maybe not ever. He was stupid to think - 

But Aaron is talking and he doesn't sound like he thinks Daryl is stupid. "David was pretty chatty. I mean, I guess we both were. But I think he was worse." Aaron takes a pause, and when he speaks again his voice is teasing. "That's your cue to say 'how could anybody be worse?'"

Daryl sorts. "Naw. I know it could be worse. I shared a car with Eugene from Georgia to Richmond." 

Aaron laughs at that and the noise is so loud that it should make Daryl flinch. But it doesn't. It makes him grin instead, makes something warm rush down his back as he keep sweeping.   
  
There's a knock on the doorway to the house and Eric is there, with a dishrag over one shoulder. 

"Hey! Thought I heard you guys out here. How are you, Daryl?"  
  
Daryl shrugs, but it feels less defensive than it has for a while. "M'fine."   
  
"I'm just finishing up dinner. Want to join us?"   
  
Daryl peeks outside. It's early for dinner. He looks at Aaron, who blushes a little.   
  
"I might have mentioned to Eric that you and I might be talking," Aaron says. 

It should piss Daryl off, but for some reason it doesn't. Maybe because he can smell dinner smells wafting out of the house and it makes his stomach growl.   
  
"Yeah?" Daryl asks, finishing up his dust pile and realizing he doesn't have a dustpan or whatever to deal with it. He just leaves it there. He'll deal with it next time.   
  
"I made extra. I mean, it's nothing special," Eric says in a rush, like Daryl is about to accuse him of hoarding supplies. "Just some sort of indistinguishable hot dish. I just dumped a can of mushroom soup and a can of peas and put rice on top. But you're welcome to it, if you want."  
  
"You really know how to sell it," Aaron says wryly, and Eric tosses the dish rag at Aaron's face. Aaron doesn't even try to duck.   
  
"You'd be doing us a favor," Aaron says as he throws the dish towel back at Eric. "The sooner we get through the indistinguishable hot dish, the sooner we can make something that doesn't look like barf."

"Looking like barf is the sign of a good hot dish. Denise said - "  
  
"Whatever, stop saying barf," Daryl mumbles. He looks away from them and leans the broom against the wall. "I - yeah, sure. I could eat."  
  
He's not looking at either of them in the face, but he can feel the burst of delight beaming out of their stupid faces, which almost makes Daryl change his mind. But that'd be stupid, to leave because they wanted him to stay. And he was hungry.   
  
"A plate of our finest barf for Mr. Dixon," Aaron says. He holds the door open for Daryl. "After you, my good sir."   
  
And Daryl goes.

* * *

He gets back as Carol's cleaning up the remains of their own indistinguishable hot dish. She's got a plate saved for him, is snapping it into a tupperware when he walks in. Which makes his stomach feel as warm as Eric's weird rice casserole did.   
  
"Hey there," she says. "Missed you at dinner. You hungry?"  
  
"Ate at Aaron and Eric's," Daryl says, and Carol scans his face and smiles at him.   
  
"Good. Well, there's some left for you if you want it."   
  
Daryl can't remember anyone ever having saved food for him before all this. At the prison, here, even at Hershel's house - when people are so hungry, it seems to mean extra. That they remembered he was coming, that they put something aside just for him.   
  
"M'good," Daryl says. Carol nods, rinses her hands off in the sink. Sometimes it feels weird to Daryl, that Carol is still the one doing the cooking and the laundry and shit. She's good at more than that. She can do anything. But she can do this too, and so he just watches as she slides the leftovers into the fridge.   
  
"I'm going to sit outside for a bit," Carol says, like he doesn't know that's where she goes every night after dinner, like it's not where he goes too. "Want to come?"  
  
"Yeah," Daryl says, like the answer was ever going to be anything but yes. "Just gonna grab something."  
  
He's going to hide that book better than just a lump under his covers. And maybe he'll try and read it again, tonight, when everyone is asleep. Maybe he'll understand it better now.   
  
He passes Rick by the upstairs bathroom. He's got Judy perched on the edge of the bathroom sink and is brushing her teeth with a level of concentration Daryl's mostly seen him devote to battle strategy. The kicker is living true to her name, one foot trying to push Rick away, almost like a game. Rick is evading her feet skillfully, which just seems to make her push more. Daryl guesses the giggling is good for one thing - it's keeping her mouth open.   
  
"Hey there," Rick said. "How'd it go?"  
  
Daryl just grunts. "Fine."  
  
Rick risks a glance at Daryl and Judith squeals, pushes out with both feet so hard she almost toppled back into the basin of the sink. Rick catches her. "Calm down," Rick says to her. "It's just Daryl."   
  
Yeah. It's just Daryl. But the way Rick says it doesn't sound bad. Daryl tucks the thought away. He doesn't have the energy to examine that feeling on top of all the other shit he'd done today.   
  
"How you feel about going out on a run tomorrow?" Rick asks, and Daryl blinks at him.   
  
"I ain't - got my bow anymore," Daryl says hesitantly. Had Rick forgotten?   
  
"We can get you something from the armory. Maybe that's something to keep an eye out for too, a new crossbow for you. Lord knows I'd rather have some venison mixed in with whatever collection of soups Carol's mixing up for dinner."   
  
"Aaron didn't he was goin' on a run'," Daryl starts, and Rick looks at him with surprise on his face.   
  
"I thought you and I could go," Rick says. "It's been a while."  
  
Yeah. It has. 

"I mean," Daryl says gruffly, watching Judith try and push Rick away with her feet again as Rick rededicates himself to his task. "I ain't doin' nothing."   
  
Rick shoots a grin at him as he traps Judith's foot in his armpit. Judith squeals and squirms.   
  
"Calm down, kiddo. I got you." Rick looks back at Daryl. "Leave at ten?"  
  
"A'right," Daryl says. And he goes to his room and pulls the book out from under his blankets. Shoves it back into his bag, grabs his long sleeved flannel so Carol won't wonder what he was doing up here. Then he makes his way outside.   
  
Carol's waiting for him. And it's been a good day. 


End file.
